There Was a Ship
by Scribe Figaro
Summary: The whim of Naraku and the brutal forces of civil war teach Sango what it is to lose. A semiretelling of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but just barely. Heavily revised in July 2007. Nearly complete now.
1. Prologue: Dreams in Which I'm Dying

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
An Agony in Twelve Fits  
**

**Revision 2; July 2007**

**(Alternate title:  
There was Another,  
Better Ship.)**

**Scribe Figaro**

* * *

_  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.  
Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
-W.B. Yeats_

_He holds him with his skinny hand,_  
'_There was a ship', quoth he.  
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge_

Contents

Prologue. Dreams in Which I'm Dying  
1. One of Three  
2. The Wedding Party  
3. The Storm Blast  
4. A Hellish Thing  
5. A Hot and Copper Sky  
6. The Very Deep  
7. Mist and Snow  
8. One by One  
9. A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things  
10. An Orphan's Curse  
11. Night, Calm Night  
12. Down Like Lead  
Epilogue: Goodly Company

* * *

**Prologue: Dreams in Which I'm Dying**

_What would I give for tears! Not smiles but scalding tears,  
To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years,  
To wash the stain ingrain, and to make me clean again.  
- Christina Georgina Rossetti_

**I.**

_In the year 1552, at the eastern bank of a slow, wide, semi-brackish bend of the Sagami River, some 30 kilometers southwest of a well, which tectonic activity had separated from the water table, and some other activity had separated from the standard conventions of space and time, Sango half-drowned. In a shelter with her traveling companion, while sleet rained, her lungs filled with fluid and she drowned the rest of the way. She was mourned. She was buried._

_In the year 1555, Naraku was defeated and a monk took the Shikon Jewel and made a wish._

**II.**

_In another year 1552 at the eastern bank of a slow, wide, semi-brackish bend of the Sagami River, some 30 kilometers southwest of a well, which tectonic activity had separated from the water table, and some other activity had separated from the standard conventions of space and time, Sango half-drowned. In a shelter with her traveling companion, while sleet rained, she recovered._

_One week later, Kagome, Inuyasha, Miroku, and Kirara were shot to death. Thirty years passed. Sango, the trusted general of Oda Nobunaga, took from him the Shikon Jewel and made a wish._

**III.**

_In another year 1552, at the eastern bank of a slow, wide, semi-brackish bend of the Sagami River, some 30 kilometers southwest of a well, which tectonic activity had separated from the water table, and some other activity had separated from the standard conventions of space and time, Sango half-drowned. _

_In a shelter with her traveling companion, sleet rained._

* * *

**Author's Note:** The only way to finish this story was to write it a second time. About half of the story has been kept. 


	2. Chapter One: One of Three

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter One  
One of Three**  
_It is an ancient Mariner  
And she stoppeth one of three_

**I.**

A few years ago, she would never have forgiven herself for this.

The trick was so obvious, a taiji-ya such as her should not have fallen for it.

A few years ago, her father would have gripped her shoulder. She would have turned to her, moved his head side to side, very slowly, and pointed out to the hole in the ice before her.

There, she would have seen beyond the illusion. The thing splashing in the river was not a child, Sango. It was an illusion, one a taiji-ya should never have fallen for.

In places like these, far from any village, the river-gods became lonely, and would resort to tricks. They would become cruel in their loneliness, and the only thing to satisfy them would be the lives of foolish travelers.

Did he know? Did the houshi beside her see that it was a trick? He called her name as she dropped Hiraikotsu and raced to the bank. Was he simply surprised by her actions, and had not seen the child in the water?

Or did he see the child, and know it was a false child, and seek to warn her? How close did his hand come to grip her shoulder?

No. He was not her father. Houshi-sama was hers, and she his, and he would protect her. But he would not scold her like a petulant child. He would not question her instincts, even if he believed she was wrong.

He trusted her judgment, even when she might die.

The shock of the cold disarmed her. The river was icy, but she hoped her taiji-ya uniform would be enough to keep her warm, at least for a few moments. But the cold struck her hard, and her head ached, her eyes burned.

She realized the trick then, and even underwater, she could draw her blade quickly enough to dispatch the river-demon that was once river-god.

She rose to the surface, and a hand reached beneath one shoulder and helped her upward.

"Sango! Are you hurt?"

Her hair was plastered to her face and down her back. Her hands were already red and raw from cold.

"Damned youkai trick," she hissed. "I'm freezing."

She crossed her arms over her chest as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"We'll find some shelter then," he said

Her feet were heavy, and each step was met by a stabbing sensation over each foot. She wasn't sure if it was frostbite, or merely her toes being rubbed raw in her wet boots, but the sensation of pain was reassuring. When things went numb, then she would worry.

Still, her senses were dull. She heard Houshi-sama, and knew he was speaking to her, but she couldn't tell what the words were.

**II.**

When next she opened her eyes, it was dark.

But there was a light, not far from her. She focused her eyes, and now her ears recognized the sound of light pine burning, and the scent filled her nostrils.

A dark figure appeared in her view.

"How are you feeling, Sango?" he asked.

She smiled slightly, as she recognized the face of her companion.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"An overhang, not far from where you fell in. Just something to get us out of the wind."

"You carried me here?"

He nodded.

"You're very light, you know. I swear that Hiraikotsu is heavier than even a sopping wet Sango."

She smiled, and as he leaned back, she regarded his clothes. A light white kimono, like the one he wore beneath his robes.

She studied the fire closer, and noticed her clothes hanging on poles propped about the fire, still steaming with moisture.

Looking down, she realized she was sleeping beneath his kesa, and his wide black robe was wrapped about her body.

She blushed.

"My clothes," she said.

"Still drying."

She studied his face carefully. She didn't trust him, not entirely, but she knew he was a bad liar.

"You didn't do anything."

Was that a statement or a question? She didn't know herself.

He did not answer. If she had blinked, she would have missed the look of hurt that came and went like the flames that flickered beside them.

"I'm sorry," she said. _I'm sorry I don't trust you. I want to trust you._

He turned toward her, to say something reassuring, but she closed her eyes and suddenly couldn't hear him.

**III.**

The rain came at him, cold steel arrowheads, and beneath his arms he held the precious bundle, the thing that would keep him and the girl alive. It had taken nearly an hour to locate the sturdy branches that found meager protection beneath a deadfall, and he had wrapped it in what clothes he had left, and yet still would not keep dry for much longer.

For this reason, knowing how dangerous it would be to loose the fire, knowing how unlikely it would be for him to locate more firewood if he – for any reason – tossed this bundle carelessly aside, he did not immediately run after the girl. He saw the form escape from the overhang where they had been encamped – a black koromo, a priest's robe which moved too lithely, too unlike the taller, more heavy-set man who normally wore it.

The clothing did not move in such a way that it appeared the person wearing it wore it poorly. Rather, it seemed as if it had trouble keeping up.

He placed the bundle in a hollow of a tree, and only then ran after her.

He did not bother calling her name, for he knew she would not answer, and would probably not even hear his voice. She was without her taiji-ya tools, and she was barefoot, and he caught up to her easily on the banks of the river. He got a firm hold on her collar, but she slid effortlessly from the rain-heavy robe and did not slow down. She ran very fast when she was naked. She managed twenty more steps, and he got her arms around her, and her skin was slick and clammy, her chest heaved beneath his hands, and her elbow was hard and rough against his nose, and the cheekbone directly beneath his left eye, and his nose again, and he managed to get one arm over her shoulder and leaned backwards, bringing them both to the ground. He found the pressure point on her neck, pressed tightly with fingers, spat blood, and she got in one more good shot at his face before she went limp.

He carried her back to the overhang, and conveniently enough, her own clothes were dry now, so he drew her kosode over her, went back to retrieve the firewood and his robe, and sighed with resignation as he realized the rain had washed the incantations from her skin.

_I suppose that was the intent,_ Miroku thought. _But it makes no difference. The storm wants her, and the river wants her, and neither will have her._

It would be a long night for him, a night of watchful vigil and meditation and prayer.

He was certain his struggle could not be compared to hers.

_I know you are in darkness, Sango._

_But there is a light._

**IV.**

Her first thought was a curse on the monk for not letting her drown.

She knew he would violate her wishes, her very clear instructions, but the predictability of his action did not dull the frustration and anger she felt. Her soul belonged in another place. How dare he keep her here? She was still so unclean, an offense to all good things.

It was embarrassing.

He sat between her and the fire, wearing only a white kosode, for the bulk of his clothes were now wrapped around her. She focused on the flames, letting them sear her eyes, and had she strength to disentangle her arms from the monk's robes she would have taken hot coals and run them up and down her body to burn away her sins.

It began with the Water God.

So many things had happened in the past ten years that she had forgotten the Water God entirely. It was such a minor thing. A six-year-old girl who travels with her father, a girl who had never left the village before and now found herself a week's journey from her home, sees so much, and fears so much, that she could not have been expected to remember the storm that had nearly claimed her life, and in failing, made promise to claim her life when she next returned to its influence.

She lived, and her father lived, and they returned, unsuccessful, to her ailing mother. Her father had known all along that the rumors of medicines in the West were nothing more than some desperate manifestation of his ailing heart, that he would sooner find Buddha's begging bowl than he would find the proper remedy for the sickness that whittled away his wife and the child she carried.

Sango's mother surprised the village women with her strength, and bore a healthy child, and nursed him for days on end, giving the taijiya heir the last of her strength. She called him Kohaku, for while he was soft as day-old tree sap as he fumbled and failed for her breast, she knew the child would grow, and hold his weapon high, and be hard as stone when the time came, and making this prophecy with one foot in the next world, she stepped boldly with the other, and Sango cried.

For this reason, Sango forgot for ten years that she was cursed. A debt of flesh and blood on the ledger of the Water God.

The river collected on this debt.

The river took her life.

So was as good a place as any for Sango to return.

Sango, who had killed her friends.

Sango, who renounced all things human and swore loyalty to her father's murderer.

Sango, who laid herself naked before Death.

Sango, who Death would not take.

Sango could tell this to anyone, _must_ tell this to _someone_, and of Inuyasha, Kagome, and Miroku, she knew any of the three could _hear_, but only one of three would _know_.

Turning to the monk before her, Sango made her confession.

The monk listened.

He listened to every word.


	3. Chapter Two: The Wedding Party

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter Two  
The Wedding Party**  
_The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,  
And I am next of kin;  
The guests are met, the feast is set:  
May'st hear the merry din_

**I.**

_I feel._

_I feel . . . hate._

_Houshi-sama._

_Houshi-sama, who is cruel to me._

_Houshi-sama, who pretends to love me._

_Houshi-sama, who is a man, and who wants to hurt me, because I am a woman._

_The ayashi driven down my throat, possessing me with its youki, does not control me._

_It makes me free._

_Free to do the one thing I have always desired, but had been too soft-hearted to do._

_Houshi-sama._

_I will kill you._

_Not because the ayashi commands me._

_But because I hate you._

**II.**

He came after me, with Kirara. I didn't mind Kirara's betrayal; it did not hurt me as he hurt me. Perhaps Houshi-sama was controlling her somehow.

Kirara might not have been acting of her own free will, as I am.

He dodged Hiraikotsu, and when the battle went to the surface of the lake, he disarmed me.

Or so he thought.

Iaido, the art of drawing the blade. He should have expected it, but Houshi-sama is stupid.

He bleeds, and as I see the red pool forming beneath the place his right arm sways, I feel excitement within me.

It is almost sexual.

I hurt him, and hurting him feels very, very good.

He speaks to me, mocks me. Compliments my skill, as if that might weaken my resolve.

I want to cut his hands off, so that he can never touch me again.

He wants his shakujou back, for he cannot fight me unarmed. I know his intent, but he slips by me regardless.

I am enraged.

He blocks my blows, and foolishly I lean too far into a strike. He is taller than me, and can easily take my balance now that I have allowed it. He takes the opportunity, driving my sword upward, taking me off my feet.

I fall, and in breaking my fall, I lose my sword.

He's now looming above me, and I am a woman splayed out before him.

I will not let him rape me.

He draws back his right hand into a fist, and now I realize his intent. I have too much fight left in me, and he knows that. He wants to break my will.

Punch a woman in the stomach a few times, make her hurt. Then she won't care what you do between her legs. Men know this. I know this too.

His fist descends, and I twist my wrist slightly, revealing the hidden blade on my forearm.

I love the look of surprise on his face as I cut him.

He backs away, in fear. I kick with one foot and roll away from him.

I probably should have gone for the throat. I could have, I suppose, but at that instant I looked into his face, and I thought that a lecher such as him should not look so handsome. It made it too easy for him.

I want to make his face ugly, to better reflect the person he is inside.

I want him to suffer.

Now he looks at me, and the cut on his cheek bleeds beautifully.

I hope it leaves a scar, one as ugly as the one on my back.

I think of the scar for a moment. Before that, I was a beautiful young woman. But the scar has marked me, and now I am ugly.

He knows this, and exploits it. He tries to woo me because he thinks the scar makes me desperate.

He smiles, I and I want to kill him.

I advance, and now I cut his left arm.

But not deep enough. He moves beside me, and grips my arm.

I try to twist free, but already his fist makes contact.

The son of a bitch punches me in the gut.

It hurts. It hurts so much I vomit.

The last thought I have, as the light grows dim, and something slimy shoots up my throat, is that I hope my womanhood grows teeth, jagged teeth of tempered steel.

I don't care if he disgraces me.

I just want him to suffer.

**III.**

There was the green grass below her, and the quiet stream beside, and the trees above, but these things she felt only vaguely, as they could not wrest her attention from the vividness of her own memory.

Every moment that passes is painful, as the thoughts bubble up from somewhere inside her. The entire event plays through in her mind, every moment, and she can recall the weight of her sword in her hands. She remembers the soft resonation she felt in her fingers, relayed to her through the grip of the sword, and through the blade. The way his skin parted beneath the blade, and the smell of his blood.

Her wakizashi, though only a sidearm, had always felt natural in her hands. Her father trained her well, trained her with rolled-up tamati mats about the size and texture of a man's limb.

Because she was the village-chief's daughter, she was given an exquisite sword, though her father did not allow her to have it until she had proven herself with lesser weapons. A samurai's sword required an expert's hand, so that in the middle of the cut, a fighter could adjust the way she drew the blade along the target. She could swing the sword like an axe, of course, and simply chop at an enemy, but this was amateurish. Doing so would dull the blade, and such cuts would never be very deep. An expert drew the blade along the cut, and did not chop, but sliced, like cutting meat.

When her sword blade struck his arm, she drew the blade in this way, and she felt the robe and skin and muscle give way, and had he not moved so quickly, the cut would have completed, and with little effort she would have sliced bone and sinew and his arm would have been lying on the ground between them.

Sango sucked in a breath and pressed her hands to her temples.

She would not throw up again.

She tortured herself this way, probing her mind, remembering each bit of what happened. She had been merciless. She had been cruel. Even a youkai, in begging for its life, would see mercy from her, but she gave Houshi-sama no such quarter, and he bled.

Never had a crime weighted so heavily on her conscience. The food Kagome gave her some hours ago had already left her, and her chest ached from her last bout of dry-heaving, but still she remembered, and still her body registered its disgust in housing a spirit so corrupt.

She thought of Kohaku, and wondered if he had moments of lucidity, and if he suffered as she did now, driven near to madness through obsession over horrible misdeeds.

He came after her. Houshi-sama came to save her, to protect her. He fought her, and in fighting her, he did not strike her except to free her from the ayashi. He could have escaped. He could have fallen back to get help from Inuyasha and Kagome. But he sought her out, and did not leave her, and very nearly died because of it.

Her guilt was incalculable. Beyond compensation. Beyond forgiveness. The ayashi in her stomach, and the betrayal of her body, that Houshi-sama knew, and that she knew he would forgive.

But the betrayal of her heart, the thrill she felt in striking him, the delight she felt at nearly killing him – these things tore at her, and with this knowledge, with this evidence of the corruption of her soul, she could not live to face him.

What if the urge struck her to do this again? What if this sensation- this feeling that strangling him, that stabbing him, that killing him, would bring her pleasure – what if this never went away?

How could she bear being near him, when she knew he would forgive her, and yet, some part of her heart was not sorry, and harbored the will to do this thing again, to relive the joy she felt in exacting true vengeance, bloody vengeance, from the man she loved and yet bore such hatred toward?

She did not know what to do. The brook beside her babbled softly, and though she kneeled quietly beside it, her soul remained in pieces.

She winced as she heard him approach. She did not face him.

He knelt beside her, and she turned her head away. If her eyes met his, if he saw the sorrow within her, she would not be able to bear it.

His hand touched her shoulder.

"Sango," he said, and the breathless way her name came from his lips made it difficult for her to breathe.

She bowed her head.

"Sango, why are you so upset?"

His hand brushed aside her hair, and his fingers traced gentle lines over her back.

"Is it because I hurt you?"

His fingers lazily drew a line up the sensitive part of her neck, just below her ear.

"Or is it because you think you have hurt me?"

"Please," she breathed. "Please don't touch me."

She felt him freeze, and instantly his hand left her.

"I apologize, I only meant to . . ."

"I mean," she said. "Don't touch me so gently. I can't bear it."

"Sango?"

"When you act foolishly, or grope me, I get so angry at you, and I strike you, and you bear it without complaint." She squeezed her hands where they lay on her lap. "And now, I have done a foolish thing, a very stupid thing, and I have hurt you."

She turned to him.

"And yet, you come to me, and if you are angry, you hide it too well for me to see. Why?"

"You were not in control of yourself, Sango. I am foolish at times, but not so foolish that I could fail to see the look in your eyes back then."

"Still, you were deceived," she said. "I knew what I was doing. I planned and executed every attack, every strike. I . . . I enjoyed it, Houshi-sama." She turned to him, eyes wide, hands pressed to the ground between them. "Do you understand? I _enjoyed_ it!"

Miroku did a strange thing.

He smiled.

"Sango, do you think you are unique, in that you have hatred in your heart?"

"I know I have hate," she whispered. "But toward you – I did not think I could hate you so much. I . . . I do not deserve friendship with someone I am so cruel toward."

Miroku crossed his arms.

"So, because your friends will not punish you, you have decided to punish yourself, Sango."

"If I must. If you are too cowardly to show me my mistakes."

"Sango."

"Strike me," she said. "Like the foolish child I am. Like my father would, for being disobedient, and putting my friends in danger."

"Sango, stop this."

"Everytime I've slapped you, Houshi-sama. Think of those times, and be angry with me. Hit me, and show me I am not the only one who rewards her friends with violence."

"I refuse to take part in such idiocy."

"Idiocy? I see," Sango said, and now her sadness became something sly. "Only Sango resorts to striking people. You refuse, because you are better than me. You simply hide your feelings, and make everyone think you are a pacifist, and noble. But you are merely a coward, too fearful to let your feelings lead you to an action you might later regret. It's no wonder you can never find a woman, Houshi-sama, for women desire strength, and discipline, and a man they can respect."

Miroku's eyes narrowed.

_Good. He is getting angry. He will lash out, and if he does hit me, he will not hurt me much. But he will be horrified, if he raises his hand to me. _

_He thinks he is so in control of himself. All the time I've known him, I've never seen him come undone. It infuriates me. I want to see him lose his reason, if only for a moment. I want to see him do something terrible to someone he cares for._

_I want him to need my forgiveness, to beg me to forgive him._

He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and murmured something she could not hear.

An hour later, she would be composed, and ask him about his injuries.

Two minutes after that, they would be engaged to be married.

**IV.**

_The river flowed._

_The river listened._

_In 1552, one year hence, the river will kill her._

_In another 1552, the river will not kill her._

_In 1571, she will kill Miroku's son here._

_When the world ends, she will have a casual conversation with Naraku here._

_In another 1552, the river will both kill her and not kill her._


	4. Chapter Three: The Storm Blast

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**Chapter Three  
The Storm Blast**  
_And now the Storm-blast came, and he  
Was tyrannous and strong:  
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,  
And chased us south along._

**I.**

This should not have been so familiar.

It was odd to him, to feel this way. He was not certain of the emotion. He knew that it was strange, though. His senses were normally quiet. Not dull, really, for there was no sharpness of emotion to compare it to. But quiet. Reserved. He did not feel the white-hot anger he sensed in the people he killed. He did not sense the bowel-loosening fear. He did not sense the despair, the feeling of being betrayed. He noticed these things. He knew he did not feel such things. But he did not miss them.

He knew the house. He recognized the shape, the furniture, though he was certain that the last time he had known such things, these items were not overturned, and dusty, and broken.

_The weapon, Kohaku. Find the weapon._

He left the house, moving on to the large building with the sagging roof. He knew it was the armory because of the large clay chimney on its far side. He knew it was the armory because its walls were reinforced, making it the strongest building in the village. He knew it was the armory because he had been there before, in an earlier life.

He smashed the steel lock off the door with his kusari-gama. When he withdrew it, the door was scored with a jagged scar that reminded him of her back.

The jaki of a hundred dead youkai responded to his presence, and begged him, absolutely begged him, to take them, to make them part of the great Naraku. He paid no heed to the voices. All dead youkai pleaded in this way.

He found what he was looking for. Beside the kiln, a length of bone, flattened, slightly bent in the middle, taller than he was, and almost as wide.

_This is not Sango's weapon,_ the voice stated. Demure. A general who trusted his foot soldier.

"It is not," Kohaku said. "It is a cut piece from a similar youkai from which the Hiraikotsu was taken. If Hiraikotsu is destroyed or lost, she will likely use this piece to forge a new one."

_How long would it take you to do this?_

"I cannot. The weapon must be fire-treated, and beaten, and balanced. I lack the skill to do this."

_What if you tried?_

"It would probably shatter when I tried to cool it."

_Then, can you make this piece into a likeness of Hiraikotsu? Can you fight with it?_

"I can place bindings upon it, and fight in close quarters if necessary. But I will likely break this weapon if I attempt to use it."

_It will not break. Place the bindings now._

Kohaku brought the heavy bone piece to the work table. He did not think the balance was especially bad. The material was soft, and would not hold an edge for long, but he could still sharpen it. He did so, taking a rough stone and grinding the leading edge down. As the material was too soft, the stone scratched and tore the surface badly, no matter how much water he used. Or should he have sharpened it dry? As Kohaku was inexperienced in sharpening a weapon of such large size, the sharp edge curled up and down along the weapon. It would cut badly, and twist against his grip when he struck, likely straining itself until it broke his grip, or his hand, or itself. He was certain it would never fly true.

But it would most certainly kill.

He affixed the bindings around the top and bottom, at the spots where the edges were not sharpened, and the bone slightly notched to hold the bindings in place. He stretched the rope tight, holding the bone in place with one foot, straining until he thought the rope might break, and wrapping it quickly so as to keep the tension in place.

He wove the tassels through the bindings, making sure to use the red clay spheres that she used, and, rubbing his rope-raw hands together, studied his work.

_Is it done, Kohaku?_

"It has to dry from the grinding, and after that, I may polish it. The polish is not necessary, as it will not fly no matter how well I polish it, but it will give the weapon the proper appearance."

_There is one more thing as well, Kohaku._

Kohaku detected the soft drone of a saimyoushou. The insect wafted in through the broken doorway, carrying a sparkling red fragment in its claws.

"A jewel shard?" Kohaku asked.

The insect deposited the jewel shard in the center of the weapon. A dark jaki enveloped it, the jaki of the creature whose corpse was pillaged to make this Hiraikotsu. Kohaku did not know white-hot anger, but he recognized it, and found it comforting. Love confused him. Kindness frustrated him. Altruism was suspect. But he trusted anger. A murderous intent was a very easy thing to deal with.

"I will kill you. I will kill you. I will kill you, you fucking taiji-ya."

Kohaku slung the weapon and returned to his master.

Kohaku would like to think that he thought very deeply about whether or not he should do the thing he intended to do.

But that would be a lie.

Kohaku would like to think that he found it very difficult to ask himself such a question.

That was closer to the truth.

He was going to hurt Ane-ue.

No. No, he wouldn't do that.

He was going to let Ane-ue be hurt.

He supposed that was not much better.

But there was a greater good to consider.

They could not defeat Naraku.

They could not survive Naraku.

So it was up to him. He, Kohaku, who knew Naraku, was the only one who could make this decision. The decision to sacrifice the ones _she_ loves to save the one _he_ loves. There was no other way to ensure Anue-ue's survival. Just no way.

**II.**

The nights were lonely, and the youkai thirsted, and hungered.

She was dying.

She would be dying, if she could not feed.

It had been many days since the last one. A young merchant, traveling alone. He was easy prey, as most men were. She drew his life-force out of him, until he died, and even to the moment his heart ceased, he regretted none of it.

She did not kill, or take lives. She bartered, and the things she took from her prey were given willingly.

It made her feel better this way, for though she survived off humans, and they died because of her actions, she empathized with them, and did not want to hurt them.

So she traded, traded ecstasy for vitality, traded physical pleasure for the essence of life. The pleasure was fleeting, but wasn't life fleeting as well?

So she lived on, and though she fed off humans, and though they often died, she loved them, every one.

The pain of hunger was most unpleasant, but she survived. And though there was pain, she lived with the pain, and accepted the pain, because the moment of anticipation made the pain worthwhile.

She sensed prey, approaching from the south, where the mountains gave way to low valleys. It was an uncommon route, and visitors were rare. This was the reason she lived here, for even though she need wait weeks between feedings, the prey came to her, and they came defenseless. A merchant here, a samurai there – such men were never missed, and for over a century she remained in this one spot, never attracting attention. An exorcism would have been dangerous, for she was weak against the magic of men, and worse, the monks, those soulless men who had given up pleasures of the flesh, were nearly impossible to tempt, and thus immune to her power.

It was best to stay in this isolated mountain path. She ate lightly, but every so often a troop of soldiers would come by, and she would have her fill, enough to satisfy her for a year or more. They would be considered victims of a sneak attack, and nothing would ever come of it.

She was wise, and spied on her prey, observing them for days if possible, before striking. Though some may have sensed her, and sometimes discussion came up about whether or not there were youkai in the area, the words she always feared were never spoken – never had any of her prey made mention of a rumor of a succubus in these mountains.

This newest group seemed likewise unaware, though they too seemed to find the path unpleasant. She hid her youki as best she could, though it made it difficult to observe her prey.

There were six of them, altogether. It was a group unlike any she had seen before.

There were several youkai, firstly. A young inu-hanyou, perhaps close to her own age, was her immediate interest. He was terribly strong, and smelled of vitality. A single feeding off him would sustain her for weeks.

The other youkai were less useful. The firecat was below her standards, of course, as she did not desire such animal-like youkai. The kitsune would be useful, had he been older, but he was yet a child, and a fruit so unripe would make her ill.

The other man interested her as well. A wandering monk, and a rather handsome one. Perhaps not as strong or vital as the inu-hanyou, but there was a look of intelligence about him, and she often found that attractive. She was curious about his skill, and knew it would be extraordinarily dangerous to show herself around a monk.

There were two young women as well. Pure, she knew, and laughably inexperienced. She knew each woman had some manner of claim to one of the men, and knowing this made her feel a delightful tightness throughout her being. Competition. Not only could she take these men, but she could take them _from_ these women. These women, who did not take care of their men. She could embarrass them, and let them see the naked desire of their men, see them willingly give up their lives in exchange for the warmth and intimacy she could provide.

She might even take the essence of the women. Why not? She couldn't let them survive, for that would be too dangerous. One woman held the powers of a priestess, and the other, the strengths of a demon-slayer.

It was a dangerous thing to do. Four people, each a formidable enemy, and two young youkai, which, though weak, might do something unpredictable if allowed. It would be a foolish thing for a single youkai such as herself to attack a group of demon-hunters.

But she hungered, and the monk and hanyou were delicious.

Tomorrow would be the night of the waning moon, the time when she was strongest.

She would attack then.

She would have them all.

She loved them that much.

- - -

It was best to attack at night, in that space between waking life and the dream. There she could slide into a man's psyche, and there her skill was at its best.

She had washed herself only hours before, and she checked her anticipation, thinking nothing about the pleasure she was about to feel, for doing otherwise would surely alert the hanyou's nose to her scent.

She kneeled in the woods, outside her vision, and cast the spell slowly. It fell like snow upon her prey, a feeling of exhaustion that came from no particular direction. The kitsune and neko-youkai took it easily, and soon after she could feel the young women fall into the same trance.

The men would be more difficult, she knew, as both slept so lightly. They might even have been feigning sleep at this point, it was so hard to tell. But she continued the spell, and the sleeping spell was so subtle, and intensified so very slowly, that both men were certain to fall under her power as well.

She kept it up for several minutes more, though every second she stood still felt like an eternity. Again, she was patient.

Ten minutes passed, and she was certain.

They would sleep. They would all sleep, and her spell would not break until sunrise.

She raced toward them, her face bright and smiling.

She was starving!

- - -

There is a particular feeling a person would have, and a particular look a person's face would display, when, in the middle of the summer, she steps outside into a raging blizzard.

It is not so much surprise as the sensation of betrayal; that the world has suddenly played a great trick, forcing one to re-evaluate all one believes.

This is about the sensation the naked demon had when she came into the clearing and saw the young shinobi standing in the clearing, all this time invisible to her senses and immune to her spell.

It was a bit comforting when the demon Naraku, who all demons knew quite well, approached the field, and the last thought on the succubus's mind was _Well that makes perfect sense_ and Naraku made a languid gesture with one hand and the succubus became a spray of ash.

**III.**

Kohaku approached his sister as the succubus became a pile of autumn-red embers at the other edge of the clearing. As was usual, Naraku only told him as much of the plan as it was necessary for Kohaku to know, and as usual, Kohaku pieced together Naraku's intentions only after seeing individual cogs begin to turn in tune to the demonic drumbeat that seemed to issue forth from his master's heart, wherever that heart happened to be.

Naraku needed to approach Sango while she was unaware and defenseless. As the group was too well-accustomed to Naraku's presence, such a thing would be best done by another demon, preferably one with no connection at all to Naraku. Thus, the succubus, and her sleeping spell, taking the group unaware, laying them out, defenseless as a litter of week-old puppies, and they did not stir, did not sense the miasma that pooled gently about the sleeping demon-hunters, a sort of sweet-smelling poison that seemed to keep the group weak and asleep lest the succubus spell weaken in her death. Kohaku knew it took Naraku some effort to make a miasma that would not kill them outright, and as Naraku stood beside the campfire and scanned the group he read Kohaku's mind and smiled.

"As you suspect, it's more difficult for me to not kill them than to kill them. And this isn't the first time I've stood beside my unconscious enemy, and wondered if I should bother myself with one quick swipe, and return to my dwelling with his head in a sack. The thought of watching the others – Kagome especially – finding Inuyasha headless, decapitated, hanging naked by his feet, the ground fully saturated with his blood . . . well, it's very tempting, but to destroy this group in such a way would have removed a great deal of entertainment from my life. This Naraku only sees moral enemies once or twice a century, and it would be foolish to waste them. Are you about ready to begin, Kohaku?"

The boy nodded, and with the cursed Hiraikotsu over one shoulder, he kneeled down, placed his mouth to his sister's ear, and spoke the words Naraku had taught him.

**IV.**

Far from the others, the taijiya, brother and sister, huddled next to each other, their breaths making clouds of moisture white and thin as lace, and Kohaku advised his sister, and his sister listened. She had gathered her equipment and followed him, her feet sure but her eyes wide with the trance that made her follow Kohaku and made her accept his words with barely a thread of doubt. She left Hiraikotsu at the campsite, along with Kirara, some miles away. There, Naraku remained, and he was probably not cutting off Inuyasha's head.

The false Hiraikotsu, badly forged, with a shikon shard as black as tar on its edge, lay to Kohaku's side. Sango wasn't ready to touch it yet.

At Sango's right hand lay her short sword and her taijiya uniform, bundled in a blue carrying cloth.

He pointed out the castle on the far hill.

"There?" she asked.

"There. He has taken the form of the old lord Hojo. Changing his face has made him vulnerable, and he will remain that way until daybreak. If you strike him down before the sun rises, he will not recover."

"We should gather the others."

"You could never return here in time, and even if you could, Naraku would sense Inuyasha's youki, or Shippou's, or Kirara's. He would know Miroku's approach, because of the Kazaana. He would know Kagome's approach, because of her purity. All your friends are beacons to him, Ane-ue. Only you can deceive him, as you are neither a demon nor possessing spiritual powers. You are barely a shadow to him, and acting alone, you can get within arm's length of Naraku before he would be aware of your presence."

Sango furrowed her brows. So far, every encounter with Naraku made it appear that he was well-aware of their presence.

"Ane-ue, it was always my hope that you would revenge the village. It is your right, far above your friends. Kagome has no complaint with Naraku. Inuyasha lost his woman. Miroku was cursed. But he destroyed our way of life, Ane-ue. He made our village a cemetery."

Sango tensed.

"It will be daylight soon. You must decide."

"Give me Hiraikotsu."

Sango's hand gripped the dull edge of the cursed weapon.

"I will go," Sango said.

Placing the false Hiraikotsu before her, she unpacked her taijiya uniform and undressed where she stood.

Kohaku remained crouching, waiting for his sister to demand her privacy, but her eyes remained fixed on the castle, and in the light of a waning moon he beheld the _mononoke_, the vengeful ghost, skin white and featureless as fine parchment, hair black as ink, and as she slipped on the uniform her limbs became black and invisible, and after securing the last of her armor she held the false Hiraikotsu behind her back, and with a sharp breath and setting of her teeth, dashed across the valley which separated her from her target.

Kohaku remained there, and about an hour later the white donjon was obscured with black smoke.

Two hours later, she returned to him, and he brought her to the river and washed her clothes while she bathed. "Hiraikotsu is broken," she said. Kohaku did not comfort her by telling her it was a fake Hiraikotsu, given temporary strength through a blackened jewel shard. But he wanted to.

She was his now. It was only a matter of waiting until the proper time to collect her. She was the last fragment, the last broken piece of his life. He cared not for his previous life. He did not miss his village. He did not miss his father. But his sister he could not be without. She would be his, and fit into him, the last piece of his life, and they would be immortal in Naraku's service, and Kohaku's life of never-feeling would be augmented, made into a life of never-wanting, and every night they would slay together – humans or demons, it mattered so little – and her strong arms would fight to protect him, and after the battle her lap would make a soft pillow for him.

When Naraku and Kohaku left the sleeping group, the sky was beginning to bruise purple, and they left no indication anything strange had happened that evening, except for an unpleasant dream that Sango would not remember when she awoke.

The castle no longer burned, and a steady stream of spearmen and lantern bearers hemorrhaged from its broken gates and painted the valley.


	5. Chapter Four: A Hellish Thing

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

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**  
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**Chapter Four  
A Hellish Thing**  
_And I had done a hellish thing  
And it would work 'em woe_

**I.**

Sango was not much of a philosopher, and much of what she thought of the world could be said in this way: _Things happened_.

Sometimes, things happened because something caused them to happen. Most times, in fact. It was often easy to understand why events occurred. Her skill in demon fighting required prediction, and prediction required deductive ability, and reason, though there were other things as well. Intuition, they said, was a woman's strength. The men she fought with, in her village, had often joked about her ability to know things faster than a man could know them, to sense danger, to dodge or duck well before the need to dodge or duck was apparent. She thought this was misleading but good-natured camaraderie. Perhaps it was even demeaning - the idea that she, a young woman, could not possibly fight as she did with natural skill. But she did not think that was the intent of her comrades in arms.

Sometimes, things happened for no reason. Even with hindsight, it is often difficult to say for certain why a series of events played out in the way that they did. Sometimes the reason is irrelevant, and when there is no clear reason, there can be no prediction.

But sometimes things happened, and Sango could not predict these things, but she could feel them. Sometimes the wheel of fate spun abruptly, sending a shudder that shook Sango to the core, if only for half an instant. The resonation of nature rebelling against something, the sensation that all was going well until, beyond logic, the path of fate turned sharply, the breathless sensation in Sango's chest as she felt that fate accelerate down a steep embankment, the sides too rocky to escape, the path before set, the speed so great the destination cannot be seen clearly, the distance impossible to judge, but the certainty still there that whatever lay before was inescapable and disastrous.

She felt this feeling before, kneeling before the elder Hitomi, the lord already in service of the demon Naraku. He doubted their skill, and her father defended her honor, and the honor of her brother Kohaku. But as her father's words disappeared in the night sky, the half-instant of panic, the feeling of horrific inevitability, struck her, and at once was gone. She did not think of the sensation again, not even when Kohaku's kusari-gama pierced her back and sent fragments of her ribs into her lung.

The premonition was so rare as to be useless to her, and it always came so long before the actual danger that she would often not remember ever having the feeling. Were she especially pragmatic, she might wonder how often this premonition came without ever being followed, but she simply did not dwell on this issue enough to come up with this idea.

Thus, when Sango kneeled before the stacked tinder in the center of their camp, holding out one hand as Houshi-sama placed the flint and striking stone in her palm, she did not think much about the very brief moment of dread she experienced.

"Sango?"

He noticed it, of course. He was looking directly at her, and surely he noticed the brief change in expression when his fingertips so gently brushed against the heel of her palm, when for an instant she was certain that something unspeakably terrible was about to happen to them.

She squeezed the flint and striking stone in her hand, feeling reassured by their weight.

"It's nothing. Just a chill."

He nodded, though clearly dissatisfied. He would be watching her closely for a while, waiting for a moment to speak privately with her, and making himself available then. It was unnecessary, of course, but it made her happy he worried for her, and that he did so without being overbearing.

Sango thought no more of it that evening. But she would remember this feeling. She wondered if this was the moment she realized, unconsciously, that she and Houshi-sama, whose fates were already close together, were at that moment set on a path by which they would be driven apart. She wondered if that was the time the gods decided to test her, to test both of them, and see what sacrifices she would make to keep him.

She wondered if the gods had sent her a wave of ill will on purpose, so that she would know this touch would be the last kind gesture she would ever receive from Houshi-sama.

But she knew none of this then, and the feeling of dread was already forgotten as she leaned forward over the small twigs and grass that she had shaved razor-thin. She struck the flint into the stone, showering the tinder, then cupping the smoking grass in her hands and coaxing it with her breath. She was rewarded with a long yellow flame, to which she quickly fed the small sticks, building the fire up with practiced skill.

Had she known what was going to happen, she would have made the fire in much the same way.

**II.**

Sometime later, Sango would be asked why she did it. She would be asked many times. She had no real answer. No reason. Perhaps it was because it brought her comfort. The feel of the linen and leather bindings. The sheer smoothness of hard, polished bone. It grounded her, gave her a foundation, a handhold, and as the situation before her, and around her, grew steadily worse.

Or perhaps she had an itch at the back of her neck. Honestly, even as her right hand went to the general vicinity of Hiraikotsu's holding strap, the instant before everything went to hell, she had no idea what was happening.

The men before them were well-trained, and at fifty yards, the rifle brigade had a decent advantage. She was not used to fighting men, and certainly not used to fighting against men with guns. She could not dodge bullets. She could not deflect bullets with her sword. She believed the trick to fighting such a thing was to move quickly, to get in close, to make sure the gun barrels could not be pointed directly at her.

There was a click, not a series of clicks, but one loud click, and she knew it was the sound of the mechanisms of the guns moving into action, twelve of them, all at once. She could tell that a catch had been tripped, that a spring-loaded part was now released, and her hand began to pull Hiraikotsu from behind her. She watched in eerie fascination as the glowing tips of the burning wicks affixed to the guns began to cycle downwards.

She noted the positions of the rifles, realizing they were all about eye-level, all pointed to the center of her chest, and drew Hiraikotsu outward, in a sweeping motion, to shield herself, and her friends.

Within one half of one blink of an eye, she had Hiraikotsu in front of her.

The guns puffed smoke, and she felt a crack in her arm and shoulder, muffled by flesh and muscle, and she felt the taste of vomit shoot up her throat and stay there for a moment.

The samurai before her were hidden in rolling white, but she knew they were already reloading.

The stench of bone-ash came to her, and the smell of the polish she used on Hiraikotsu, and her eyes caught several small holes in her weapon, on the edges, where the bone was thinnest. Each was no longer than a thumbnail, and from each there trailed the barely-discernable wisp of white smoke.

She turned the weapon in her hands, seeing a number of small holes on the other side, the material warped, the small, rough-edged steel balls each no bigger than her thumb, each buried about an inch into Hiraikotsu, and she knew the weapon was ruined.

She noticed all this before the sharp crack in her arm registered again, and before the wave of nausea hit her again, and before her body reacted, knowing the heavy weight of Hiraikotsu was pulling her hurt arm apart, sliding her hand out of its grip, letting the weapon bang against the ground with a loud and defeated thud.

"Kagome!"

She turned, seeing the girl stumble, and she knew the bullet meant for her, the bullet that had gone through Hirakotsu, had gone straight into the girl, and that was why her shirt was so red, why she fell into Inuyasha's arms, why Inuyasha cried her name in such hopeless lament.

It was all over. They were defeated. They were dead. Sango knew this.

"Get her out of here!" she cried.

The hanyou moved like the wind, pulling the bleeding, screaming Kagome into his arms, looking over his shoulder for half a second, eyes locking with Sango, and it was his shame, his confession, his expression switching from sorrowful to callous, and Sango read him, as she could read any demon: _I would let you die to save Kagome._

She understood. She, who had nearly traded Inuyasha's life for the safe return of her brother. If only Naraku could be trusted, she would do so again. It was only natural to kill one's friends to save one's loves.

**III.**

Something inside her turned off about that time, but she was aware enough to recognize, when she reflected upon her situation some hours later, that she was not treated unfairly.

In some other circumstance she would have been awed by the professionalism and skill of her captors. Eight men with pikes surrounded her, crossing the blades of the lances in a circle about her neck, making it impossible for her to move or turn without cutting her own throat. Two more men, crouching below the pikes, searched her. They took her blue furoshiki, and patted her down, finding clasps and vials of powders and poisons tucked in her kosode and obi, and began to fill a canvas bag with them. When they found the blade tucked away on her right forearm, they did not attempt to remove it. Instead, they immediately moved away and informed their commander, still mounted on his horse, and he ordered her to roll up her sleeves to her shoulders and remove everything on her arms. She did so, dropping the tekkou and blade to the ground, whereupon the soldiers retrieved them. They then bound her arms and legs and carried her to a wagon. Two men with swords sat on either side of her, and the pikemen surrounded the cart.

They took her to a provincial guard station, which consisted of a fenced-in area and several shacks. In one corner of the fenced-in area, there was a wall of thin cloth suspended at about shoulder height. The purpose of this was clear when she was brought under this cloth. On this side, there were four women with short swords. On the other side, the men stood at the ready.

In this makeshift dressing room, her female guards ordered her to undress and remove anything in her hair. One women collected her clothing while the other checked her hair, then searched her skin for markings that might identify her. Aside from the scars, they found none. The taiji-ya did not mark themselves. Throughout this time she asked them who they were, why she was being held, and what happened to her companions, but her captors did not respond in any way. When the search was finished, her clothes were taken and she was given a thin kosode. After she put this on, the female guards lowered the modesty curtain, and the male guards escorted her to the cell where she would spend the rest of the week.


	6. Chapter Five: A Hot and Copper Sky

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

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**  
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**Chapter Five  
A Hot and Copper Sky**  
_All in a hot and copper sky,  
The bloody Sun, at noon,  
Right up above the mast did stand,  
No bigger than the Moon._

**I.**

Her hair was unbound and disheveled. She wore a kosode of hemp, which demonstrated the natural sickly hue of dead plant material, save for an intricate pattern of tiny spots of mildew. The unfinished seam scratched a dull red line from her left shoulder and across her neck, and her right collar down across her chest, across her breast and almost to her hip. The kimono covered only half her thighs, which was just as well, as a longer garment of this type would likely have rubbed her knees raw, and also as her bare feet and legs were warm enough from the coat of mud they developed not long into her walk. The kimono was tied shut with a rope that was really no more than three stalks of wheat intertwined, one of which snapped while crawling out of the detention cage. It was not likely the other two were up to the task of protecting her modesty for very long, but the problem was solved by a coil of rope wound just beneath her breasts, which held her kimono closed while pinning her arms to her sides. A second coil bound her wrists behind her back.

Around her neck they placed two loops of rope which ran out to cords about three meters long; having seen the assembly, and having a vocational appreciation of knotwork, she understood the loops were meant to cinch up when pulled. As she walked she realized the simple but functional design: on the road, at her right and at her left, a samurai walked with a loop around their chests; these loops of the type that would not cinch up. The implication was clear: her guards needn't do anything but keep about fifteen paces apart, and if she tried to run in any direction one or both loops would tighten around her neck. A further implication was that upon any annoyance of the non-escaping kind, i.e., attempting to talk to anyone they pass, one of the guards might stop at something interesting at the side of the road, and the other guard might not notice and keep walking.

Along with the mounted prison official, a half-dozen foot soldiers and two cavalry officers were following her. Since her two guards appeared sufficient to prevent escape, she took this as hopeful sign. Her captors were prepared against an attempted rescue. The others had not been captured

She saw her friends wounded, but knew they had survived worse. For now, it was nearly a matter of waiting. She was not yet told of her crime, not yet told she was found guilty, and not yet told she was to be executed. These formalities are not always seen though, of course, but at very least a prisoner would expect to be taunted by guards in such a way to reveal her situation. Seven days had passed, and at this point her only clue was that her captors believed she had some information and wanted her to confess to it. This was not said directly, but twice now she was taken from her cell and taken to the fenced-in area, and told to sit on a moldy tree stump that was scored with dozens of parallel axe marks. The first time, they told her it was to allow her fresh air. The second time, they apologized, saying they selected the wrong prisoner. In neither case was there any attempt to lie convincingly.

She did not mind the fresh air. Her cell had been a cage of rough tree branches each about the width of her forearm, which bisected a guard shack. The cell was large enough to comfortably fit a half-dozen prisoners, and the lingering stink would indicate the cell would uncomfortably fit over a dozen, and had done so until her capture. The cell had been cleaned out in preparation for her arrival, either because she was too important to endanger with disease, or (more likely) because they expected she would be able to escape if given so much as a shard of a teacup. The stink, of course, she could not use against her captors, which was just as well as the wood was so infused with sweat and breath that it was practically a living thing itself. She knew the cell had been cleaned because of the heap of straw bedding left outside the shack. She knew the cell's previous occupants had been relocated because a lot of this straw bedding was wrapped around bundles that had feet sticking out one end.

At the front of her cell was a square panel approximately one meter wide, with a door suspended by iron hinges from the top of a heavy wooden frame. A metal rod went through a hole in the floor just before the panel to bar the door from opening. The gaps in the cage were too small to allow a person to reach around the door and access the rod, but it was possible that she could tear a strip of her kimono and make a rope to snag the rod and pull it free. Her guard – a well-arrayed and battle-worn captain who was clearly not impressed with this particular detainment facility – made the same connection. When she had been secured in her cell, this captain approached her – close enough that he could whisper without being overheard by his men; not so close that she could reach through the bars and grab him – and spoke to her.

"We are told that you are so resourceful an assassin that if given even a scrap of cloth you will find some way to break free and strangle your guards. My superiors, who do not want you to break free, and my men, who do not want to be strangled, have told me you should be kept naked. Some of my men go so far as to say you should be bound and suspended from the roof-beam. Human dignity makes it impossible for me to do these things. I do not blame you if you take advantage of this failing of mine, but such an action will force me to place you in the care of my lieutenant, who is not so encumbered."

She had days to weigh whether or not a good man would make such a threat, but considering her treatment – poor-tasting but edible millet, no threats, no beatings, no rape, not even leering from the guards; i.e. she was a Very Important Prisoner – she considered that it may have been a calculated threat given to her by a man who would be looking at seppuku if she escaped.

The Captain now rode behind her, this day, seven days after her capture, during her first trip outside the provincial detainment area he had commandeered.

An hour up the steep, winding incline, she saw the walls of the white castle, and she nearly stumbled, which would have choked her, but even without being choked she could not breathe for a moment. Some memory worked its way loose and faded before she could get a feel of it.

It happened again when she approached the open gate. The outside edges of the heavy wooden doors, built of countless tons of pressed timber and iron, were shredded to splinters, and a few paces behind the gate a trench drew a perfectly straight line along the packed earth of the outer courtyard, ending in a boulder the size of an ox, inscribed with Buddhist prayers and iconography. This boulder was bisected by a handspan-wide crack. Wedged in the crack was about half of Hiraikotsu. A spray of white fragments each no larger than a finger, fanning outward from the boulder for as far as she could see, would appear to be the other half of Hiraikotsu.

"That's a hell of a calling card," said the Captain. "It's been a week and they're still prying the damn thing out of there."

The boulder, the remnants of Hiraikotsu, the earth, and the sky, began to tilt back and forth. She heard the Captain's next words as if through a bale of cotton.

"I'm sure you won't answer, but I can't help but ask: which demon allowed you to throw a bone through eight inches of iron-reinforced timber and halfway through a fifty-ton boulder ?"

**II.**

She awoke, head pounding, in what would appear to be a meeting hall of the same castle. As she stirred, she saw the Captain make a gesture to a messenger. She was still bound, and found that the ropes around her neck were affixed to posts on either side of the room, giving her enough room to lie down, sit, stand, or move about ten paces in any direction.

A young man in well-starched, exquisitely-arranged mourning clothes entered. The Captain and his guards bowed deeply and left.

She sat up. The man sat on a cushion at the front of the room. The man was Hojo Akitoki.

Her stomach spasmed. She dry-heaved. He waited.

"I know who you are," Hojo said. "Or, I thought I knew. Because you traveled with Kagome-sama, I believed you were a good person. That you fought against evil. That if you had a cruel heart, you would not be able to keep company with the beautiful Kagome-sama.

"So I hope, I hope against all hope, that you could explain to me the source of this misunderstanding. I hope that you can explain to me why I awoke three nights ago to the sounds of my mother screaming in terror, my father demanding to know who was killing him and why, and you shouting like a lunatic with your sword at his throat."

"Naraku," she whispered, dry, hoarse.

"Yes, you called him that. You demanded he show you his heart. He was ready to cut his chest open in hope that self-torture would appease you and stop you from killing his family, but he had no weapon. You demanded he show his true form, and chased him around his own bedchamber at sword point, deflecting his Chamber Guards, and all but running me through when I finally got close enough to you."

"In a dream . . . I ran away . . . I couldn't do it . . ."

"Even with your shattered weapon abandoned here, even with a dozen witnesses who confirm the invader was wearing the uniform of a youkai taijiya – _of which there exists only a single survivor_ – even with a half dozen witnesses who memorized the face of the person who tried to kill their lord and cannot confuse it with any other – even with _all of this_, I would let myself be convinced that all this was done by an imposter – except that, as I lunged at you with my sword, I saw your face – I saw your face seeing my face – and there was recognition. You know who I was. You know I knew who you were. And you escaped. You could have killed me, as you could have killed anyone that night, but you dove out the window and were not found until the next morning. And then you attacked. With Kagome-sama in the crossfire, you attacked my men, and they shot her. They _shot_ her, you insufferable _bitch_."

"Is she . . ." She could not speak.

"I don't know, but now that I have you here, you may assist me in my investigation of that very fact."

He made a gesture, and from behind a partition, two samurai brought in a wooden chest, of the sort that Hojo would fill with gifts to tribute provincial leaders and court nobles, and removed its cover, balancing this cover on the edge of the chest. Working together, with slow and theatrical movement, they placed the items on the tamati between her and Hojo. Hojo flinched slightly, as with each item produced, Sango let loose a howl of agony.

Inuyasha's sword, dried mud encrusting its hilt.

Miroku's staff, broken in two.

Kagome's yellow backpack, marked with black soot.

"My agents found these items scattered throughout this region while pursuing their owners. Would you say that their owners would not abandon these things unless they were dead?"

She made not a sound. Words were not necessary.

"Then it is certain they are either dead or they are pretending to be dead. Perhaps they will try to rescue you. Until then, they are not a concern to this investigation, as you acted alone. Do I surmise correctly?"

She nodded.

"Good. So to be clear, you confess to the events of the night I spoke about earlier?"

"I was in a trance . . ."

"Oh, of course."

"I was . . ."

"You were there."

"I did it."

"Who told you to do this?"

"My brother. He told me that the keeper of the castle was Naraku."

"Your brother. Told you that my father was the devil, and needed to be killed."

"Yes."

"Your brother Kohaku."

"Yes."

"Your _dead_ brother Kohaku."

She nodded.

"I . . . see." Hojo exchanged a look with one of his samurai, who up until now had a stony countenance that betrayed a hint of murderous hatred, and now wore a stony countenance that betrayed a hint of pity.

"Kohaku tells you to do things?"

"Sometimes."

"Such as?"

"He wants me to leave him alone. To stop trying to rescue him."

"From what?"

"From Naraku."

"Do you listen?"

"No."

"So you go to Naraku to try to save him?"

"Yes."

"Does Kohaku tell you to kill people?"

"No."

"This is the first time?"

"Yes."

"If he tells you to kill again, will you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because . . . he is with Naraku . . . and Naraku lies."

"Naraku is using Kohaku."

"Yes."

"Kohaku tells you lies."

"Yes."

"If Kohaku tells you to do something?"

"I will say no."

Hojo clapped his hands.

"Very excellent. This makes things much easier. If you were completely sane I'd have to have you executed. But it looks like you're merely hysterical. I can show leniency without losing face."

"Hysterical?"

"Vagina-crazies. It's really a wonder how any woman can not go insane from all that menstruation."

"Wait a minute!"

"With execution off the table, we're going to have to choose one of a few punishments. Your class status is gone, of course; while the taijiya were considered of the farming class, you and your progeny will forever be outcasts. As for what to do with you, I would consider exile, but my advisors have insisted that you be kept in one place. So that brings us to forced labor."

Hojo stood and gestured with his hands.

"To the north: The copper mines of Hojo and Takeda."

"To the south: the pleasure districts of Asakusa and Shibuya."

Sango gaped.

"That's where you have sex for money," he said helpfully.

Sango continued to gape.

"To be honest, your body seems equally suited to either task."

She fixed eyes on the broken shakujou and said nothing.

"Clearly this is too much too quickly; I'll give you some time to think about it."

Hojo lifted the yellow backpack, cradling it like an infant, and walked toward the partition. Stopping suddenly, he made a gesture of forgetfulness, and reached into the backpack. He withdrew a thin hardcover book and, holding it with one hand, he thumbed through the pages. Its vibrantly colored cover was labeled, in a language that looked remarkably like Japanese, _Introduction to Psychology_.

"We have made a lot of progress today," dictated Hojo, his eyes skimming the pages. "I hope you feel you have learned something about yourself. In the future, when you are upset, you should direct your feelings to positive things. Write in a diary, or paint a picture."

Nodding sagely, Hojo replaced the book and carried the yellow pack out of the room.

**III.**

Outside, he walked twenty paces down a hall and turned right, where he had left Hitomi Kagewaki.

"She admitted to it," said Hojo. "Displaying the items worked just like you said."

"She is sick," said Hitomi. "Being shocked is the only way to break through the sickness."

"It is amazing you found these items so quickly. My guards lost their trails not long after they got out of sight."

"My agents have been tracking them for years. I have entire books filled with accounts of their travels, their encampments, and their footprints. They were on the trail when your forces captured Sango; when her companions escaped they practically threw their personal effects at my agents' feet."

"My advisors are pushing me to proclaim them as agents of Oda. Even when I object, they tell me it makes no difference, as they are most surely dead."

"If they were spies, I would have found their messages. If they were dead, I would have found their graves."

"I will have to hold a tenuous hope. As for Sango . . ."

"You don't know what to do with her."

"Because of her friendship with Kagome-sama, I can't kill her . . ."

"Brothel?"

"Or copper mine. I gave her the choice. She hasn't decided."

Hitomi pursed his lips.

"To be honest, I'd prefer a copper mine. A brothel seems . . . rude, almost."

"You want to treat her like a man," said Hojo.

"I want to treat her like a warrior."

"An insane warrior."

"An excellent warrior."

Hojo nodded.

"As you know, I have some control over the Takeda mines. I will be able to keep track of Sango if she chooses this fate. And I'm all but certain she will."

"We have mines as well, Hitomi."

"Of course. Of course, that would be fair."

Hitomi approached the yellow backpack.

"I'm very glad this item aided your investigation. Thank you very much for safekeeping it."

Hojo winced as Naraku placed his hand on it.

"As you well know, Kagome-sama is a most interesting young woman. I have a number of scholars who are absolutely dying to get their hands on this carrying sack. These are stunningly unique artifacts. Her clothes, recall how strange they are? In here she has a complete change of clothes. I know of no one who has ever seen clothes like that before."

Hojo shifted in his seat to conceal the beginnings of an erection.

"And this . . ." Hitomi drew out a white, flowery piece of cloth. "I don't even know what –"

"_The Takeda mines!_"

Hitomi blinked. His hand was still; Kagome's underpants waved in what would appear to be the gust of wind created by Hojo's outburst.

"I've decided that Sango will go to the Takeda mines. If you will accept her."

Hitomi smiled.

"That is very generous."

He replaced the contents of Kagome's bag.

"As I was saying, my scholars are dying to get their hands on this bag and its contents, but the friendship of Takeda and Hojo comes before anything else. I only hope my court will forgive me for denying them the opportunity."

Hojo skidded forward and gripped the bag.

"There is one thing," said Hitomi.

Hojo made a face as if ready to whimper.

Hitomi pulled a book out of the bag, as thick and heavy as silver bullion.

"I think I should satisfy my court so long as I return with one of her fantasy books."

Hojo would have surrendered most of the furniture in the room so long as Kagome's panties remained. Hitomi slipped the book into his kimono and bowed. He walked past the room where Sango was bound, but resisted the urge to peek inside.

As he left the castle grounds, Hitomi did not resist the urge to pull out the book and marvel at the title.

_Annotated History of Japan, Volume Four: The Ashikaga Bakufu and the Sengoku Jigai_.

"Kagome, you wonderful, beautiful, stupid, cremated bitch," said Naraku.


	7. Chapter Six: The Very Deep

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter Six  
The Very Deep**  
_Water, water, everywhere,  
And all the boards did shrink;  
Water, water, everywhere,  
Nor any drop to drink._

_The very deep did rot: O Christ!  
That ever this should be!  
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs  
Upon the slimy sea._

**I.**

I will admit that there are emotions and feelings that I do not understand. My knowledge of human interaction is limited to those things which assist me in exploiting them. There are some minor things I do not give much concern about.

Take, for example, betrayal. In essence, it is the act of deciding one's needs are more important than the needs of another person. Only a human would decide such a concept was worth verbalizing. It is only natural to serve oneself. Why give it a name?

I suppose, there is the important aspect of deceit in betrayal. That one may weave his way into another, allow that person to lower her defenses, and then exploit this new weakness. But for this to happen, one must trust the betrayer.

This also confuses me. Trust. What benefit is there in that? How much easier does one's day-to-day life become by allowing a select group of people the opportunity to destroy oneself? To allow others access to your core, your mind? This is idiocy. Even as I watched the interaction between Inuyasha and Kikyou develop, I found it difficult to believe. It was laughable. For no apparent reason, they opened themselves to each other. Trusted each other. Kept in close contact, without their weapons, such that one could easily kill the other.

I suspect there is some sickness, some disease, that infests humans, and hanyou as well. An addiction. Like the need for drug or alcohol, they need to place themselves in defenseless situations.

This is perhaps an artifact of their reproduction. Men and women are vulnerable then, sometimes for an extended period of time. It is unfortunate for them, that their bodies are made in such a way that it requires such a long sexual encounter. Doubly unfortunate that the human requires nearly a year to grow, and does so in the woman's belly, so that she is an ineffective fighter over much of that time. Triply unfortunate that, once born, the new human will not be an effective fighter for a decade or more.

In any case, it is clear that, so far as social interaction is concerned, from the point of first meeting to the point of coitus, the human is a very inefficient and vulnerable thing.

I feel no need to emulate humans to this level. I will take their appearance, to some extent, but certainly not their habits. I have no weaknesses, and if I did, I would feel no need to expose them to my allies. After all, all allies are temporary.

I do not kill those who betray me, because I have never trusted a person to do any more than serve his own instincts. If a person is useful to me, I keep him alive. If a person's best interests begin to deviate from my own, he is useless, and I kill him. Betrayal is irrelevant. I would be an imbecile if I was hurt, hurt to the point of losing my reason, because a person did something obvious and predictable, like harboring murderous intent toward me, or intending to seek out my heart and kill me.

So, Kohaku, do not fear for your life just yet. I will kill you, of course, when you have served your usefulness to me. But your intent to deceive me is not relevant to this. Your closeness to me is only in your mind, Kohaku. You have no better chance of finding out my secrets and weaknesses than Inuyasha or his companions.

Keep doing as you are, Kohaku, and you will very possibly live out the rest of your natural life. Or far beyond. I will of course kill you to take the jewel shard back, when I need it, but if you have been good at that point, I should need only minimal effort to resurrect you.

Still, you have taken back quite a lot of your own memory. I am careful in taking your memories, as the deep-rooted ones are quite necessary for me to exploit your taiji-ya skills. But, most unfortunately, your memories of your family and childhood are scattered amongst these things. Like weeds, these tiny bits of root tend to sprout. It has been three months since I last touched your brow, Kohaku, and washed you of such dirty things. And yet, already you recall your sister.

I know that, so long as she is out there, you will have a split loyalty. This does not bother me very much, in that you have yet to do anything unexpected, but I am aware you are becoming less and less reliable. This is not good.

If I were human, I suppose I would kill you right now. Or should have killed you already. But I am not human, and I do not care about betrayal, and you, Kohaku, are still useful to me. I gave you some choices when I pulled you back from hell. Here is one more. Continue to live this way, guarding your memories from me like little hatchlings, as if I could not see them poke their beaks between your interlaced fingers, and I will continue to use you, and at some point I will kill Sango and I will kill you. Or, cease this charade, continue to serve me, and I will take the one thing that continually distracts you, and give it to you.

Two taiji-ya, fighting together, would be far better than just one. You may again fight along side her, and in the times I do not need you, you may do whatever things brothers and sisters do.

**II.**

To hurt someone, to very and truly hurt someone, you must love first. You must appreciate a person, understand the person, trust the person, if that is possible.

Then you must destroy the person, while loving her.

I do not care much for Inuyasha or Kagome. He is loud and brash; she is simple and stupid in her own ways. They arise nothing in me.

But I cannot dismiss the huntress, the only of my enemies who ever surprised me, even if it was only once, the only human I ever found worthy of my attentions. She too came from hell, spent her time discarded and buried, and came back, crawling to me, stinking of dirt and death, for like this Naraku, she was not something to be easily killed.

I tested her, and I disappointed that she betrayed him for Inuyasha, even though this Naraku knew her already, and knew what she would do. But this Naraku loved her then, loved her in the only way a youkai can love a woman, and I made her a puppet, to dance for her and to horrify her, and Sango cursed Narkau's name, and refused to trade her honor for her brother, and tortured herself, and this Naraku loved her for it.

**III.**

_He is amber, and he belongs to the river, but you are coral, and you belong to the sea. I will wear you down like the ocean, shape you and smooth you, until there is nothing left of what you were before. Still you will be hard, and heavy, and well-marbled in color, but with no sharp edges, I should be able to keep you in my pocket, and not worry about you insolently snagging a thread._

**IV.**

Why do you do this?

_Because I can._

That's not an answer. That's a child's answer.

_Then because I want to._

Do you always do the things you want to do?

_Eventually._

**V.**

You brother had a choice. He had many choices. I gave him the shard, held in him the place between life and death, and asked him. He chose life. I asked him if he would rather have the hell of his own guilt and memory, or let me take such awful things from him. He chose to drown in nepenthe, and thus was reborn. My child. Not yours. And now he was alone. Frightened. And I gave him one last choice. I told him he was free, to go out into this deadly world, to seek his own food and shelter, his own allies, his own enemies. And he fell before me, forehead to my feet, and begged me. Begged me to keep him. Pledged me his loyalty, a thing I never asked. Swore to kill and die on my whim. And he meant it.

He has proved more useful than I could have ever imagined. And I know you surpass his skill. I will be honest, Sango. I want you. I want you to come to me.

**VI.**

A thread dangled before him, thin and tattered but with some strength in it, and he threaded it between the others.

Naraku wove, and Naraku wondered what worried men more: the illusion of choice, or the fear that there was no one out there, no Naraku, to make sure things happened as they were supposed to happen.

Naraku was kind. Naraku gave her the choice of paths. And Naraku made sure all paths led her safely to the place she needed to be.

All things served this Naraku, and all things of any import came to him eventually.


	8. Chapter Seven: Mist and Snow

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter Seven  
Mist and Snow**  
_And some in dreams assuréd were  
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;  
Nine fathom deep he had followed us  
From the land of mist and snow._

**I.**

Survival became the order of the day. As her first fear was that she would be mistaken for a prostitute rather than a miner, Sango made some alterations to her appearance prior to being transported north. First, of course, she shaved her head. Second, she acquired men's clothes prior to her departure. (She was able to secure rough but serviceable garments and brief possession of a razor from the Captain, in exchange for telling him a little about how she fought with Hiraikotsu.) Third, she tried very hard to stink worse than a miner. This was a challenge, especially as she wanted to do this without actually contracting the diseases which caused this stink. Through trial and error, she found that periodically smearing shit on the outside of her thighs was the way to go, and after only a few weeks in the Takeda mines a group of laborers confronted her and informed her that their penises shriveled up at the very thought of her and asked she please, for the love of God, stop trying to smell worse than they do.

The work itself was no worse than her childhood – while carrying rocks up a steep incline she would often smile, as it reminded her so much of her taijiya training. She would practice gymnastic routines while the rest of the laborers slept. Even those that did not know her past were sure she was insane. The overseer was impressed, and attempted to deputize her as he did to the few slaves with leadership capability, but she refused. He beat her until he tired, and she screamed as if she was dying, but in fact she felt nothing, and had felt nothing since the day she had killed all her friends. She wondered if, in a reversal of circumstance, Kohaku would try to rescue her.

Living was hard. To wake up and know that day, and every day until she died, would be the same as the day before, and every day before, was difficult.

So when Takeda Kuranosuke found her, during an annual inspection, she did not object when Takeda claimed her as a concubine that had been kidnapped. She did not want to be a concubine, but she liked the idea of doing something different. That she was a concubine was a ruse, but she did not know if Takeda would feel the need to ease suspicion by having sex with her. She was not particularly averse to the idea, and if she changed her mind about that, she could always smear herself with shit. Whatever her intention, it didn't really matter, as she was an insane person and it was generally expected that she would refuse to be a concubine. This was because every single person in the mine – and keep in mind all but one of them were men – would _kill_ to be the concubine of Takeda Kuranosuke. It followed that, if by some chance she persuaded Takeda to leave her here, those men would be reduced to stupefying rage and likely kill her. So with all that considered, the choice was really quite clear.

After Takeda left, and a day before her palanquin was ready to bring her down the mountains to Takeda Castle, she smeared herself with shit and screamed obscenities at the moon, just to keep up appearances.

**II.**

Takeda bedded her almost daily. After a few months she stopped menstruating and began to have very disturbing dreams.

In these dreams, Shippou burned Kagome on a funeral pyre.

In these dreams, Inuyasha succumbed to infection.

In these dreams, Houshi-sama, half-delirious, made love to Koharu.

In these dreams, Kohaku told her that he would always love her.

In these dreams, the boneless leech-child of Takeda raged at her, furious at the inhospitable womb in which he resided, as conducive to growth as a rocky hillside. She bled throughout her short pregnancy. She secretly ate plants which purported to abort pregnancy, but the leech-child made his pain her own.

At six months, her vagina opened and fistfuls of blood and meat came out, and very calmly, on weak and bloody legs, Sango entered Takeda's bedchamber. With a tanto in one hand, she straddled him, and demanded he look at what his penis had done to her. There was, perhaps, some reply he could have made which would have stopped her from killing him, but she did not know what that reply was, and neither did Takeda.

**III.**

She stumbled through the halls, over the wooden platforms, through the mud, and her legs were sore and sticky, and her footing was uncertain, and she knew the moment she was found missing that even a blind man could follow the trail of blood.

The rattle of the swords of Takeda's Inner Guard sounded from every direction at once.

She knew there was no fight in her, that half her body had been spilled out some hours ago, that the child she birthed and killed had been killing her as well, clawing her womb, kicking her bladder, grasping her intestines and strangling them, and biting whatever flesh its mouth could find. Now her belly hung in flaps, her pelvis nearly split in two, and there was the overwhelming sensation that, if she leaned the wrong way, every bit of her viscera would fall through the gaping hole between her legs.

She held the tanto in her hands, slick with Kuranosuke's bood. She could tell them they needn't bother, that capturing her would not put his head back on his neck, but her throat was so sore with screaming she was certain she would not be heard over their commands to surrender, and even as she stood still her head floated this way and that, and her tongue was still, and even if she had been of sound and sharp mind at that moment, it was unlikely she would be able to come up with the proper curse for this particular situation.

Her breasts were heavy.

The first guard came, and as he raised the naginata his head flew five meters into the air.

The soft sound of steel on flesh, chopping bone, the rattle of chain.

The others disintegrated before her, and none of them screamed.

She had not seen him in over a year, and he was still the same. Amber eyes, unruly hair, the same serious expression, not wanting his older sister to see him cry, frustrated, or weak. But he had grown under his new tutelage, a stronger and harder young man than the boy that she and Father taught. Outside his sister's protection, Kohaku had become strong.

"Ane-ue," he said. His eyes flicked above and to the right, and in the moonlight she could barely see the swift movement of his hands as he sent the kusari-gama aloft, intercepting an arrow from its path toward her back, splitting it with a soft crack and casting its pieces back into the night.

"Kohaku."

In a life of tragedies, he had found her at her most tragic, for she was a whore and mother and child-killer, had fucked for her life and knew she would do it again, and she bled before him, bled from the dirty places, and she could not bear her own smell, and Kohaku stood before her.

"Rescue me," she said, and she was not asking him to save her life, for she had been dead for quite some time. "I have done terrible things."

"You cannot go back, Ane-ue," Kohaku said. "If you come with me, you can never go back."

She fell to her knees before him, for he was the last thing in this world that was hers, and she touched her face to the ground, and kissed the youkai-hide of his boots, made them wet with saliva.

"I am yours, yours, yours, Kohaku. Yours forever. Yours forever if you take me away. Even if it's to him. Even if I must serve our father's murderer. Even if he enslaves me."

"Naraku does not enslave," Kohaku said. There was no anger. No defense of his master. His was the soft, patronizing tone of a teacher whose student has just said a silly thing. "I serve him because it is better than not serving him."

"Then I will do so as well."

He took her shoulders, lifted her gently, and her legs were weak, and she leaned against him, hands on his chest, and he was the seven-year-old who peed his pants when he laughed too hard, and the eleven-year-old who masturbated beside her when he thought she was asleep, and he smiled.

"You will be happier," he said.

He took her in his arms, and she hugged him, and she was amazed at how strong he was, how a boy who was still a whole head shorter than her could carry her so effortlessly, and as exhaustion claimed her she could sense the miasma pooling about her, confounding the efforts of her trackers, the hunters who sought the fallen huntress, and they choked and died, and she did not care.

Kohaku was sure on his feet, leaping from tree to tree, rock to rock, long strides, soft landings, weaving back and forth, his sister on his back, held tight to him with the kusari-gama chain lest she lose her grip and fall, her chin on his left shoulder, her breath in his ear, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands clasped behind his back and supporting her bottom, making sure not to touch the places that hurt so very much, and he moved with such grace that Sango would have been almost certain he was standing perfectly still if she had not felt the cool air that brushed away the tears from her cheeks.


	9. Chapter Eight: One by One

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

_Story rewritten July 2007! Read the earlier chapters again!  
_

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**  
**

**Chapter Eight  
One by One**  
_One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon,  
Too quick for groan or sigh,  
Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang,  
And cursed me with his eye._

_Four times fifty living men  
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),  
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,  
They dropp'd down one by one._

**I.**

Kagome cried, a horrified cry, gurgling in her throat, wailing, lifting up, breaking, stopping for a moment, coming back again, sliding down a register, dissolving into staccato sobs interrupted with short whimpers.

Inuyasha wanted to die. Wanted to go deaf. Blind. Wanted to escape. To set her down. To run away from the bloody, writhing mess in his arms. To get the smell out of his nose. The taste out of his mouth.

He begged her to be quiet. Absolutely begged her.

And, suddenly, she was silent.

Inuyasha screamed.

**II.**

Koharu was young. Koharu was poor. Koharu was soft and scared and would never get the stink of fish-oil off her hands. Koharu was not a fighter like Sango, but she was strong still. Even with her small stature, she could easily defeat Sango in a contest of lifting dead weight.

But Miroku-sama would never challenge them to such a thing. Miroku-sama would never say, "I will marry the girl who can move thirty drums of oil into a wagon the fastest."

At least, not outside Koharu's dreams.

Koharu would never be Sango, but Koharu worked hard, for she knew Miroku-sama would return to her someday, possibly by accident, for Miroku-sama would probably forget her. But he would see her someday, and remember, and he would see a woman who worked hard, who did not shirk her duties, who was trustworthy and kind and pure. She was not pretty like the girls who spent their days lounging and bathing and seeking a husband, but neither was Sango, so Koharu believed this did not reflect badly on her. Miroku-sama would return someday, and see she was older, the perfect age for him, with full breasts, virginity intact, a tireless servant, a wondrous cook, a lover with no experience and limitless dedication. She possessed three changes of clothes, and one of them she kept delicately arranged and hidden for the day Miroku-sama came, a kosode of brilliant white and deep magenta. She kept a stack of firewood hidden near her home, so that if Miroku-sama came on a day that there was no wood stacked, she could still make him a hot bath.

Koharu did not hate Sango. Even though it was the only way she could imagine Miroku-sama wanting to take her away, she did not want Sango to die. Sango was not a bad person, and did not take Miroku-sama away from her. It was simple circumstance. Koharu was not a fighter. She could not fight beside Miroku-sama, and thus she could not travel with him. That was her fate. To dwell on such matters would only steer her from her goal. She must be realistic. She must be resolute.

Someday, Miroku-sama would return to her. On that day, she would be much older. Sango would be dead then, but she would have died well, without pain, having lived a full life, having children that Koharu would care for and love as her own.

Koharu would comfort Miroku-sama, and care for him, and anything she had suffered up to that point would be well worth it.

But Miroku-sama did not arrive in this manner.

Miroku-sama appeared in the field before her, between her master's old grazing mare and her master's nearly-emptied cart. He rode Sango's firecat, and the stench of blood was so strong her mare nearly strangled itself on its lead in attempt to flee.

She could barely approach him, for he screamed and shouted and kicked the firecat and demanded she return him to wherever it was they came, but the firecat was stalwart and barely flinched even as Miroku-sama's proddings caused blood to spurt from dark clumps of fur around its belly and flank.

Miroku-sama slowly relaxed, though still not so much as acknowledging her, and as she reached for him he went limp and fell into her arms.

He weighed slightly less than two barrels of fish-oil.

She lay him out on the cart, glad it was long enough to fit such a tall man. She made his bedding out of some twenty yards of the softest silk, for which she had only yesterday traded a hundred pounds of uncooked rice, and she knew such an act would destroy the delicate material and bankrupt her master, and she did not care. She stripped him and made herself clinical, and assessed his wounds. She bandaged his upper right arm with strips of white linen, but she did not know what to do about the hole on the right side of his chest. It was only about as wide as the tip of her finger, and it did not bleed very much, but it was terribly deep. She could see the glint of a broken rib beneath, and every ten breaths or so, it produced a bloody foam of bubbles.

The firecat had made a quick circle of the cart over all this time; Koharu did not see this but could see the regular splotches of blood surrounding them when she looked around. The firecat sat resolutely, its eyes clear, guarding Houshi-sama with what little remained of its life.

Koharu at once decided she loved this creature more than words could express.

She bandaged the chest wound as best she could, and as she pulled several warm layers of silk and linen over Houshi-sama, the firecat emitted a whorl of flame, and now she was nothing more than a kitten. Koharu stepped down from the cart to fetch the firecat, but the creature turned to the sky and gave off a crying mew of such misery and pity that Koharu's legs went weak and she fell to her knees, and Koharu understood Kirara as well as Sango could, and the feline cry of _I have failed my mistress forgive me_ made her crumble, and as Koharu walk-stumble-crawled to the firecat. Kirara was curled up into a ball, and by the time she reached the creature Kirara was red and sticky and barely warm at all.

Koharu cradled the soft bundle in her arms for the longest time, but when she heard Miroku-sama's labored breathing and wet coughs, she delicately but quickly lay the firecat down and forgot about her.

Miroku-sama remembered her.

"Koharu."

"Hai, Miroku-sama?"

"The others are in danger. I have to return to them."

"I'm sorry, Miroku-sama. You're badly hurt. It's too dangerous to move you now."

"Where am I?"

"A field not far from the South Road. I made my camp here last night. I was about to leave when you came."

"Kirara. Did she return to Sango?"

"Miroku-sama. She . . ." Koharu shook her head.

Miroku-sama pulled his right fist out from beneath the covers and held his palm before his face. If the wound hurt with such an action, he did not show it.

"After all this," Miroku said, "we fall to a group of samurai. No last battle with Naraku. Not even close."

He clenched his fist.

"My fault entirely. My karma has grown to such proportions that it came to me all in this lifetime, and spread to my friends as well. I stole a thousand trinkets and drove a bullet through Kagome-sama's heart. I drank a thousand bottles of sake and filled Sango's belly with spears."

His hand gripped Koharu's collar and pulled her face inches from hers.

"Kill me. Kill me right now. I will bring my karma with me to the next world. I will overflow hell with it. I will take it away from the others, and maybe they will live."

"No," she said. "Never. Don't talk nonsense. You're still alive. The others might be alive. You don't know, do you?" She did not ask what happened to the others. She did not care.

"Koharu," he said, releasing her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"You need to get better. Rest and you'll heal."

"Let me see the wound," he said.

She nodded, pulling down his covers, and if he was curious or bothered that he was naked beneath them he did not show it. She pulled aside the bandage for him, and he did not flinch.

"No," Miroku said. "No, I will not heal."

"Miroku-sama . . ."

"I am sorry to meet you in this way, Koharu. You have been so kind to me. Even after I have left you time and time again. And now all I have to give you is my death. You deserve better, Koharu."

"It is enough, Miroku-sama. It is more than enough, to have you here, to relieve your pain as much as I can."

Miroku-sama caressed her cheek with his hand.

"I wish I could have found you a good man. Someone worthy of you. Someone kind. You deserve nothing less."

Koharu knew Miroku-sama loved Sango and not her. Koharu knew she was not attractive to Miroku-sama, and that he would not touch her.

He slept, and as night came she got beneath the same covers to keep him warm, and to make sure he stayed warm she wriggled out of her clothes, and lay beside him, and then atop him, and then around him, and he murmured apologies, and he caressed her hair.

She did not mean to be the one to bear his child.

She knew such a thing was to be Sango's honor.

But the child had to be born.

And Sango was not there.

It was simple circumstance.

**III.**

Kouga traveled approximately ten ri with the taste of Kagome's blood strong in his mouth. He had gone for nearly an hour this way, seeking the source of the cloud of pungent lifeblood that stung him with every breath. At first, it was sweet to him, and filled him with longing, and he believed she had hurt herself only slightly, and her scent called to him.

But he dismissed that assumption within minutes, and realized most of what was inside Kagome was now outside Kagome, and he intended to reach her immediately even if it meant his limbs and sinew would separate sometime afterward.

He found her beside Dogshit, in a forest, in a pool of shared blood. Dogshit breathed laboriously and though his eyes were open he did not so much as glance in Kouga's direction as he pushed the hanyou over and took a look at Kagome.

Kagome was badly off. She was bloody and dirty almost all over, and the rest was pale and sweat. Kouga allowed himself a few seconds to curse Dogshit and point out his failings and that letting Kagome be hurt was beyond forgiveness, and then took Kagome in his arms and brought her straightaway to . . . where?

Kouga debated and cursed himself and within a few minutes, already far out of sight of Dogshit, decided on the mountains, the home he had so long ago abandoned, the ancestral home of the Wolf Clan. There were places of healing there. He did not know all the techniques, but he would ask his ancestors and they would tell him.

Kagome would not die. She would live, and see that he excelled Dogshit in both strength and compassion, and she would make the proper choice.

**IV.**

Inuyasha would not live.

That much was obvious to the priestess.

She found him easily enough, for few other creatures leave trails of blood dripping from the top branches of trees. His breath was a low growl, and he lay splayed and shameless as she approached.

"Kikyou," he said, as it was their custom that she would approach him, and he would say her name, and she would be perfectly silent and emotionless and pretend the sound of her name on his lips did not remind her how much she absolutely loved him such a short time ago.

Blood flowed through several holes in his chest, and she drove one finger into the hole in his upper right chest. He winced, but did not cry out, for she had once torn into him in more painful ways, and she withdrew a finger stained red to the last knuckle. Beneath her fingernail was a black half-moon of stinking corruption.

"I can't extract them," she said. "The steel driven into your chest has been festering for days. I will pray for you, Inuyasha."

"Your promise," he said.

She turned away from him.

"You promised, once. To bring me with you. To hell."

"Inuyasha." She had abandoned such foolish notions already. She would never have attempted such a thing if she knew how great a danger Naraku and the Shikon no Tama would become.

"You are dead, Kikyou, and I am dying. So we can be together now."

"We cannot. It is still my duty to protect the Shikon no Tama."

_Besides, entertaining such idiotic feelings of love and loyalty to another was the thing that created this entire mess. My shameful existence in this world is penance; I will not spurn it._

"Then watch over Kagome. Kouga took her. She'll be safe with him for a while."

She nodded. Most of her soul was within Kagome, and she had felt the sensation of that soul going very distant, to a place outside this world, but she saw no need to tell Inuyasha the girl was already dead.

She made a camp there, and burned incense for him, and when he died she kissed his lips and buried him.

In her heart, the feeling of distance and direction toward the place she last felt Kagome's soul cooled and darkened like the embers of the dead campfire, but she fixed it in her mind, and in the morning she set out to retrieve the girl's shards before they could be stolen.


	10. Chapter Nine: A Thousand Thousand

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

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**  
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**Chapter Nine  
A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things**  
_Alone, alone, all, all alone,  
Alone on a wide, wide sea!  
And never a saint took pity on  
My soul in agony._

_The many men, so beautiful!  
And they all dead did lie:  
And a thousand thousand slimy things  
Lived on; and so did I._

**I.**

_I could not take a human life._

_I could not take a human life until after I had tried to create a life, and failed._

_My womb is ruined._

_I can no longer give life to anyone._

_So I will take life from everyone._

_Killing Takeda ensured my resolve._

_I do not fear Naraku._

_He can show me no greater horror than myself._

**II.**

She had expected something, a ceremony perhaps, Naraku giving her some sort of badge, or mark, giving her orders, or just raping her, but there was nothing, just Kohaku, just whatever food they could find together, and Sango came to the realization that much of Kohaku's time, much of her time now, is spent in wait of Naraku's order. She knew that Naraku knew they were taiji-ya, and they were not good, but _the best_, and they were weapons not to be drawn in every battle.

Several weeks passed, and the order came, and she went with Kohaku to the village, and let him wreak havoc as she sought the target.

The woman pressed her body against the corner of her home, screaming, pleading, begging forgiveness, promising to make offerings to her grave. It was her first kill in Naraku's service, and she might have regretted the act if she had not spoken _his name_.

"I tried to save him! I tried to save Miroku-sama! He was dying! I couldn't stop it!"

Sango split Koharu open like a suckling pig, and it made her shiver, and in blood and ecstasy she heard Naraku's voice for the very first time, and he said "_Burn it_." She took tinder from the fire-pit, lit the four corners of the hut, and she and Kohaku guarded the burning home, killing all who came near, until the roof collapsed and Naraku told them it was finished.

The first one was difficult, for Sango killed with hate, but the next one was easier, and the one after that, and Sango came to know Kohaku's joy, the joy of nothingness, the joy of being beyond hate and fear, beyond love, the joy of simply being, of existing in a place beyond responsibility or doubt or misgivings about the blood she waded through, and when Naraku said _kill_ she killed, and when Naraku said _burn_ she burned.

Without Kagome's help, Sango found it difficult to recover the remaining jewel shards, but she managed well enough.

**III.**

They slept in the same bed, as they did when they were children. She remembered the smell of his hair. Sometimes she kissed his forehead, or his cheek. Sometimes that would excite him, and he would kiss her back, sloppy, silly, childlike kisses on her eyelids and the bridge of her nose. Sometimes he would kiss her lips, and she did not mind, but she would calm him down with hushed words when he tried to open her mouth.

She was still bigger than him, and perhaps always would be, as years had passed, perhaps even decades, and neither of them aged by any indication she could measure, as if time itself had stopped at their first encounter with Naraku at Hitomi Castle. She was certain that was the case, as every moment since then she had been holding him, bleeding with him, laying with him, dying with him. When she closed her eyes, she could sometimes feel the kusari-gama in her back, taste castle-keep smells in her mouth – lanterns and perfumes and dirt and horses and laquered armor – feel the dirt under her fingernails, and the arrow shafts that brushed her cheeks. She bled for Kohaku, and Kohaku bled for himself, and they would bleed forever, and die forever, and as they were no longer living they could not be killed.

Even the dying sleep, and he lay with her back against her, her hand on his shoulder. He slept so soundly, so deeply, and she tried to stay awake, so that she could enjoy this closeness with him, but she slept deeply too. Though rare, there were times when she awoke at night, and found her hand on his cheek, his chest, his thigh, and wondered if it was her doing or his. Sometimes she dreamed of Houshi-sama, and when she awoke, she remembered the dream, and what she was doing in the dream, and she did not have to wonder.

It was only after the passage of many nights, nights spent with Kohaku, who was so very patient, obedient to her in a way he was not obedient to Naraku, that she came to realize he would never know another woman, never hold a girl's hand or touch her cheek, never peek up a girl's skirt and get slapped, never, ever see a woman who was not screaming, never caress a woman except with his kusari-gama, never embrace a woman except to break her neck. In the past year they had met fifty men and ten women, and in that same time they had killed fifty men and ten women.

She would certainly fare no better. Houshi-sama was her only love, and as he was long dead, so were the parts of her that loved and lusted, that trembled and quivered, that warmed and wet.

What use were such things, anyway? Since Takeda she had yet to flow. Was it the miscarriage? Was it Naraku's influence? Or had she cast away her womanhood, along with everything else, that bloody, beautiful night?

She did not know. She did not miss it.

**IV.**

"Who are you, Sango?

"Why do you behave as you do, dress as you do?

"Do you realize you are a killer?

"Before you came here, you were Sango the girl. Not woman. Simply girl. You traveled with your friends, who adopted you like some sort of pet.

"Here, you can be Sango the sister. You can care for your brother."

"I would rather care for him without serving you."

"Of course. But he is in a perilous place, you see. Not merely the shard that sustains him, but his mind. He is a killer, you know. He was not a killer before, for he was a soft thing, his flesh too week to sustain him, a thing too weak to live on his own. But he is a killer now, and in making him a killer, I ensured he would live far longer than he would have otherwise."

"He died because you killed him."

"He died because he was weak, Sango. I was not the one to kill him – Hitomi's archers did that. You remember, Sango. I know you do."

"You forced them to."

"I did not. I instrumented a dangerous situation, of course, but such a thing is inevitable in a taiji-ya's line of work. Kohaku had no business wearing the garb of the taiji-ya. The thread I struck him with erased his will completely, and in fact, he followed my instructions with alacrity. I was expecting merely to confuse your group, forcing your father's attentions away from the youkai. But I said "Kill," and he ripped your hunting party to pieces. I was surprised, Sango. I thought no taiji-ya would be so willing to follow demonic instruction. You saw him, Sango. The assurance in his eyes. The deliberation in his hand. For the first time in his life, he was dedicated to his task. He was unafraid. He was so unused to such emotions, and so thankful to have them, that he would not consider to question where they came from. He did not question his desire to kill his clan. He simply did so."

"You are lying," she said.

"I never lie, Sango."

"You are being dishonest, and speaking half-truths and irrelevancies."

"Ah. Yes, perhaps. But it is true that Kohaku was terribly susceptible to my influence."

"Why?"

"He was a young boy, and eager to please. Eager to please anyone. His father. His sister. And, once I spoke to him, and tempted him, even eager to please me."

"You tempted him. You gave the order to the archers."

"Your father killed him, when your father refused to believe the strength of the taiji-ya had gone into his daughter but not his son. Your father cared for you, Sango, but he would never accept you as an heir. He needed Kohaku to carry on his duties, even though it was clear, even to me, Sango, that such a role should have been yours. You would have been a proper carrier of your clan. But your father would not accept his village becoming run by a woman, even if that woman was his beloved daughter. And he did love you, of course, even a youkai would not be confused about that. When your mother died, your father became blind to Kohaku's inadequacy, unable to comprehend that this boy, who was bright, was best suited to the job of a record-keeper, or an artisan. No, Sango, your father made himself believe his son was a killer of youkai. You remember his progress, Sango? At the age of eleven, he fought alongside children of eight and nine, and even then could barely keep up with them. He was idyllic, quick to daydream, quick to panic."

"Don't speak ill of my father."

"I do not intend to. He was a man deserving of respect. But he was not perfect, Sango. And it is foolishness to suggest he did not play a role in Kohaku's death. He brought that child – he was a mere child, Sango! – to an extermination, under the foolish assumption his son would have some sort of battlefield epiphany, and draw some great skill through the heat of his first real battle. Your father believed that love and good intentions were sufficient to protect Kohaku. He was foolish to think this. If I had not fought you then, some other demon would have, and Kohaku would have fallen no less easily. Only a madman would come to a battle with a sword in each hand and a sleeping babe strapped across his chest."

"He could have protected him, if we were merely fighting a simple spider-demon, as we thought we were. Father and I could have kept him safe as he learned how to fight."

"No, Sango. If you protected him, he would not learn. And if you did not protect him, he would die. His lack of heart in fighting is not something he would have grown into. It was simply not in his nature. He could not have lived the life your father gave him, Sango."

"And the life you gave him?"

"He survives. He survives because I made him survive. He viewed Hell, Sango, and he loved it. It burned away all that made him weak. I brought him back to this world, and he was tempered steel. And he lives, because this Naraku demands he live."

"And why do I live, Naraku?"

"Because it is better than death."

"I lived with my friends before."

"You lived as a girl then. As a thing. They would not let you be what it is you are meant to be."

"And what is that?"

"A killer."

"I was meant to kill demons."

"Humans are demons."

"They are not."

"Then why did you not kill Inuyasha?"

"He was different."

"They are all different. Humans and demons, evil and good, strength and weakness. There is no distinction. You kill the things that threaten you, and threaten your interests, and call it morality. It is no different than what demons do to humans."

"You say that because you are a demon."

"I am a thing above both humans and demons. I interact with humans much of the daylight hours, and they never call me demon to my face. Some say, behind my back, that I have demonic powers. Because they doubt a human can wield my strength. And they are right. But they are so close to the truth, they do not even see it."

"So I am a killer."

"You are a killer. And also a sister. Kohaku could not live without my influence. Deprived of me, his memories would destroy him. With me, he lives as you live. And you can live together. And besides that, you can be a woman."

His hand touched her between her legs.

"I do not wish to be a woman," she said.

He receded.

"Then don't be. I can remake your body if you so desire. Would you be happier barrel-chested and with a cock?"

"I would not."

He shrugged.

"What about the others, Naraku? Kagome, Inuyasha, Houshi-sama. Even Kirara."

"They died," he said.

"Why?"

"Because you can't wander aimlessly, without so much as a lesser clan's seal, through a massive civil war, carrying odd weapons, and just hope beyond hope that you never run across a brigade of soldiers who were better than you, and who perhaps could not tell the difference, on sight, between a group of demon-hunters and a group of shinobi who had just assassinated one of their own."

"I can't believe you didn't play a part in this."

"My part was minor. The thing that killed your friends was the fact they paraded around a region of this world where human life was exceptionally cheap, while believing their skill and good intentions made them invincible. They were good, Sango, I give them that, but it was inevitable they ran into someone better."

"So that was it, then? You just let them die."

Naraku laughed.

"Now you understand, Sango. Yes. I let them die. It was within my power to interfere, and save them by any means I chose. But their continued existence was not part of my plan. Inuyasha was a formidable enemy, for a time. But my powers grew, partly due to the jewel shards, partly due to my various self-improvements. Since Hakurei-san, I've stayed above the level at which Inuyasha could pose a threat to my life. After that, he was not fit enough even for me to practice my skills upon. I have no need to save the life of someone useless."

"And Kagome?"

"Mostly irrelevant. Her ability to see jewel shards would have been most useful, but capturing her alive had proven too difficult. She is not the sort of person I can control easily."

"And Houshi-sama?"

"It amazes me that the monk, who is intelligent in many other ways, believes I did not realize the Kazaana was a weapon when I gave it to his family. The Kazaana is my mark on him, my means of control. Whenever I want him out of commission, I provoke him and throw some saimyoushou at him, and he falls for it every time. Every time, Sango."

"I can't believe you didn't kill them."

"My dear Sango," he cooed. "I don't care what you believe. You know that."

**V.**

"You have brought me the last three pieces of the jewel."

She stood, unmoving, two jewel shards in her hand, freshly-taken from the wolf-youkai's legs.

"Kohaku," she said.

"It would take me no effort at all to revive him."

"I would do anything," she said.

He took the two jewel shards from her hand, glanced at the third, still embedded in her brother.

She undressed before him, bowed before him, spread before him, with no hesitation, no aversion, no fear, no shame, no doubt, and Kohaku watched.

He did not caress or kiss or touch, but envelop, and she was a dancer in the dark, and the dark danced inside her. It was like drowning in hot tar. She wore him as a coat, a pelt, and the thick oil sought every bit of skin, every fold of flesh, every corner and crevice, seeking innocence, seeking purity, searching out a part of Sango that was not beyond redemption, a part he had yet to claim his own, and he found none, and she knew he would not. He penetrated her like tempered steel, between her legs, yes, but also between her ribs, and between her eyes, and he filled her with molten iron, made her veins run hot and thick, blasted through the recesses of her mind, finding memory, regret, sadness, and burned them in hellfire.

She had already surrendered everything she loved to Naraku, but even after all this time, she kept the things she hated to herself, locked away where not even her waking mind could see.

"Even your nightmares belong to me," he said to her, and her misery became smoke and soot and ash, and she was remade yet again.

When he was done, he receded, like the last wave of a tsunami, and left her, splayed and wet, bloody and naked, and Kohaku draped a blanket over his sister, kissed her mouth, and told her she was beautiful.

**VI.**

"Do you know why I like you?" he asked.

"I find it difficult to believe you like anyone."

"Perhaps I use the wrong word. Let my correct myself. Do you know why I do not cut out your uterus and make you wear it as a hat?"

Sango smiled at this Naraku, who was very nearly flirting with her.

"No, Naraku-sama, I do not."

"Because you entertain me. You will, once in a while, do things that very nearly surprise me. That is very rare."

"Not because I am a slave to you?"

"I have no use for slaves. Your will is your own, even though it is my will as well."

Her body still ached, but only slightly. He had been more gentle than Takeda, and unlike him, Naraku respected her enough to not lie about loving her, or feign concern for her pain.

"Why did you ask that of me?"

He laughed.

"Just because you can?"

"No, Sango."

"Because you wanted to demonstrate something?"

"Yes."

"You wanted to see what I would give up to you. Whether or not I would hesitate. Whether there was any part of me that continued to defy you."

"No, Sango. I already knew you wouldn't."

"You wanted _me_ to see it."

"I did." He caressed her hair. "My pretty Sango. If I had a soul, I might want to love you. If I were human, I might want to fuck you."

"Let me bear your child," she said, and recalled making a similar offer to someone else, long ago.

"Don't be stupid," Naraku said, and he was gone.

**VII.**

He came to her with a new face, and she asked what name he preferred now, to go with that new face, and he smiled with teeth sharper and more numerous than any creature had right to have. "Father," he said. "Creator," he said. "Master and God."

She called him God.

She curled up with him, around and within him, and whispered, and begged him to show her all the ways of being dead.

He laughed as he always laughed, as the dead laugh, rotten leaves stirred in November winds, overripe fruit shaken in a wet wooden bucket, bitter chill, graveyards, icicles on bleach-white teeth, and he caressed her, and she was his, every bit of flesh, every drop of blood, and he could break her, drink her, eat her, play with her inside and outside, within and without, wear her like a robe, and throw her away when he was done.

There were many days when she would lie on his floor, smelling of him, warm with him, and the glint of the jewel would catch her eye, and for an instant she would come close to remembering, but never did she come close to caring.

**VIII.**

The year was 1571 and Sango was now thirty-six years old.

She played a shadowy role in Naraku's service at first, assassinating key members of the Oda family until about 1558, whereupon Naraku was the only Oda left in Owari. By 1560 she was fighting on the open battlefield of Okehazama, sending Hiraikotsu through cavalry and exposing the flanks of infantry to Naraku's forces. Thereafter she served as an advance scout as Naraku's armies occupied Mikawa, Totomi, and Suruga. Eight years later, commanding a full division, she killed a thousand men in Sakai while capturing the musket foundry, and a hundred more while guarding the supply trains that transported these weapons to Naraku's siege camps outside Kyoto. Kohaku was equally successful in Omi.

Sango lounged in the half-completed castle at Azuchi, staring off into the distance at Lake Biwa. General Kohaku, now 31 years old, was supervising the 18,000 men that have been occupying Kyoto for the past three years. Sango, commanding a replacement force of 45,000 men now camped at Azuchi, was currently protecting the Shikon Jewel.

Messengers from Kohaku informed her that warrior-monks from the mountains were endangering Naraku's hold on the city.

In September, she would march on Mount Hiei and murder twenty thousand Buddhist monks.


	11. Chapter Ten: An Orphan's Curse

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

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**  
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**Chapter Ten  
An Orphan's Curse**  
_An orphan's curse would drag to hell  
A spirit from on high;  
But oh! more horrible than that  
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!  
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,  
And yet I could not die._

**I.**

Shippou clung to Kagome's shirt as long as he could; even after the pain of the bullet and his smashed face drove him unconscious his grip was so tight that Inuyasha ran and lept nearly an hour before the kitsune's death grip failed, sending him into thick brush, whereupon he bled and slept until nightfall.

When he awoke, hours after the samurai tracking Inuyasha's blood trail passed him without notice, he took stock of his injuries. His vision was blurry, and his head ached in a way that nothing had ever ached before, and when he touched his face with his hands he found the flesh on the left side was torn, and then a round piece of metal, thick clots of blood, and most of his left eye fell into his cupped hands.

Shippou threw up for a little while.

If Kagome was there, he would have cried on her lap for days straight. But Kagome was not there, and though he wanted so badly to curl up with his tail and sleep, he wanted to find Kagome even more. Besides, as bad as things looked, he knew Kagome had no problem fixing something like this with her medicines.

Shippou squinted. Already he was getting used to seeing only out his right eye. And his face, though encrusted with blood, stopped bleeding long ago.

He tore a bit of his belt off, bandaging his face to protect the wound, and set off on his journey.

**II.**

He followed Inuyasha's scent to a low mound of dirt, and then he began to realize how very, very wrong everything had gone. But he was a child yet, and thus it was obvious to him the mound of dirt with no markings meant nothing, a mere diversionary tactic. Inuyasha probably buried his clothes there, and bathed, and the scent he left when he left the false grave was far too weak for Shippou to pick up.

As well, when he circled the grave he could pick up the weaker but oh so pleasant scent. There was now the Kagome smell, very strong, very clear. Old, yes, nearly days old, but his belly rose and fell with each taste of her, and with no care of pacing himself he followed her trail, nearly at a full run, without sleep, without food, for three days and three nights

**III.**

Not even death could corrupt Kagome.

He found her in the mountains, on the rock altar of the destroyed wolf clan, beside a bloody, comatose Kouga. He had tried to save her, clearly, and for the half-second or so he afforded Kouga – he could not bear to not look at Kagome for longer – he realized the wolf youkai had attempted some blood-letting ceremony, to give Kagome strength from his own veins. But though he made every inch of the altar red, and though – from the looks of her – he made Kagome drink in wolf blood, and then bathe in wolf blood, it seemed the stuff left her faster than he could put it in.

This was probably clear to Kouga at some point, and the depth and careless zig-zag of the cuts on his forearms and his thighs seemed to imply that, near the end, he was simply trying to kill himself.

But still, the wolf youkai breathed, and his days-old cuts long ago closed, and though his face was pale and pained he seemed ready to awake at any moment, coming out of one nightmare, headlong into another.

Shippou stared at the serene, sleeping, long-dead Kagome, and felt himself age ten years each time he blinked his eye.

But not even death could corrupt Kagome: though pale and blood-encrusted, her eyes were closed, her lips relaxed and serene, her arms and legs only slightly splayed, palms up, hands in loose fists with thumbs partly drawn in, as if she had just recently lain down and, in mid-stretch, fallen fast asleep atop her downy sleeping bag.

She even smelled sweet.

Shippou approached, and seeing her skirt had flipped up with the wind some time ago, pulled it back down, tucked the edges beneath her thighs to keep it in place, and pressed her legs together to keep her decent and dignified. He took her arms too, pressing them to her sides, intertwining her fingers on her belly. And now he stood beside her face, and kissed her forehead, and kissed her cheeks, and kissed her lips, and he rested his head against her breasts, cold, but still so soft, and Shippou softly realized he had no choice at that moment but to be an adult, and always be an adult, and he would most likely not ever find anything remotely good in all this world.

Morning came, and Kouga still slept, and Shippou knew with every hour he was risking the possibility of seeing Kagome decay before him, and Shippou threw up a little again, or dry-heaved, as he had not eaten in days, and the exertion made his bad eye hurt like hell. And he understood there was no one here to help him bury Kagome, or even explain to him how you bury a Kagome, and Shippou decided he'd have to come up with a ceremony himself.

Shippou carried Kagome to the river, and undressed her there, and washed her body, and washed her hair. Kagome had been wearing her backpack, and Kouga brought it all this way, leaving it beside the altar, between two incense burners which still burned. Shippou emptied their contents reverently. Books, almost entirely. But he found her soaps, and her shampoos, and her extra underwear, and her perfumes and her deodorants and her make-up and a large number of things he simply could not identify.

With the soaps and the liquids in sweet-smelling bottles he washed her, and made her smell beautiful, and dressed her in her spare clothes, and just to make sure he did everything possible for her, everything he ever remembered seeing Kagome do, he painted her fingernails and toenails a soft red, and brushed her hair a thousand strokes, and used her make-up just as he had seen her do – foundation and blush and mascara and lipstick and – within about twenty minutes he realized that was harder than it looked, and he apologized profusely, and washed her face clean. Just a touch of lipstick. There. That's all.

He made the pyre. He knew if he did it incorrectly, and it did not burn hot enough, the results would be bad enough that he would be forced to gouge out his other eye. So he was very, very meticulous. Only the driest wood. Build it up well. Kindling. Three grades of kindling. Then the heavy logs. Tent it up, to chimney the flames. Get it very, very hot. Hotter. There. Now place the bark turnings. Light it in at least two places. No. Six, to be safe. Eight places, then. Start the fire a little ways away. Ready the branches. Good.

That was it. He was ready to send Kagome away.

He did not think about it. He could not think about it. He simply picked her up, placed her atop the pyre, and set the platform alight. In nine places. And he kneeled and he prayed for seven hours, until the last ash went grey, and then he collected her bones and buried them.

The Shikon shards would not burn. The goddamned Shikon shards would not burn. He did not even bother to collect them. Five Shikon shards, calling out to every demon in the land, and he just left them there. How dare they not burn. How dare they survive what Kagome could not.

**IV.**

He had no place to go, not yet. He could wait for Kouga to awake. He was nearing that point. Kouga could take the shards, take them far away. Shippou made camp, collected food and water, and every hour, on the hour, he prayed for Kagome.

Kouga awoke. Sort of. He sat up, and his eyes were open, but he would not speak, and would not eat. He just stared. Stared at something. Off in the distance. Once in a while, he laughed. A short burst, a chuckle. He would smile, and it would be there and gone like a flicker of flame, and then he would stare at the horrible thing off on the horizon again. He did this several times a day for about two days.

**VI.**

Hakakku and Ginta came, and carried Kouga to a place to sleep, and fed him, and spoke to him, and – this was so unusual – even embraced him. Kouga still did not speak, but he ate again, and slept again, and that was a bit of an improvement.

**VII.**

Kikyou came, seeking the shards. She likely found it amazing that they had not been taken yet. But Shippou knew no foul creature, no matter how strong, could ever approach the place where Kagome's ashes were buried.

Shippou was still too numb to react when told the bad news he already expected: Inuyasha was dead, and the fate of Miroku and Kirara was not certain.

But Sango was alive?

"Stories of a captured taijiya have passed me on the road here, and spread like wildfire at the places I rested. None of these stories have said she was executed. If you return to the South Road and go East you will find the guardhouse where she was most likely taken."

Kikyou agreed to stay here long enough to pray for Kagome on the proper days. Shippou left Kagome's backpack here, as the first part of his shrine to her.

**VIII.**

After Shippou left, while Kikyou bathed – a miko should never do funeral duties; tending Kagome's grave weakened her spiritual powers and made it necessary to purify herself daily – a creature of mud and hair, wearing a baboon pelt, stole Kagome's shrine.

Later that day, the yellow sack was delivered to Hitomi Kagewaki at Hojo Castle.

Three days later, Shippou tracked Sango to the guardhouse, and from then to Hojo Castle.

The trail ended there. Whatever her fate, Hojo kept it secret. Months passed. He did not gain information on Sango. But he found Koharu. She was pregnant. Shippou protected her.

One year later, Takeda Kuranosuke was killed. The killers' descriptions were of Sango and Kohaku.

Koharu knew she was going to die.

She begged Shippou to take the infant son of Miroku and travel hard and fast to the West.


	12. Chapter Eleven: Night, Calm Night

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter Eleven  
Night, Calm Night**  
_I woke, and we were sailing on  
As in a gentle weather:_  
'_Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;  
The dead men stood together._

**I.**

Dagashi was born under a poor sign.

His father died the night he was conceived.

But his mother lived, and loved him.

When Dagashi was three months old, he was taken by a kitsune. Some time afterward, as the kitsune carried the bundled infant westward, Dagashi's mother was killed while pretending to protect the item in Dagashi's sleeping-crate – a convincing likeness of Dagashi until the blankets began to smolder, at which point, without any witness, the kitsune enchantment failed and the Dagashi impostor reverted into a large radish.

The kitsune cared for Dagashi in the mountains, and brought him to the care of the monks of the sprawling Enryaku-ji complex in the West, and there Dagashi was so secret that not even the Kazaana could find him.

**II.**

Shippou spent the next decade learning military tactics in Suruga, learning ninja tactics in Ise, and spying on affairs in Owari, and when he found himself able to pass for a human for days at a time without strain, he went by the name Jubei, and his knowledge of regional politics was sufficient that he felt he could impersonate any number of high-ranking generals if the proper opportunity arose.

This opportunity arose in 1562, when Akechi Mitsuhide was driven off the field of battle by cavalry, and Jubei, a common spearman, followed chase. In a thicket, he sliced through the general's attackers, and found Akechi dismounted and run through.

Shippou took the horse, the appearance, and the name of Akechi Mitsuhide.

**III.**

Dagashi's life on Mount Hiei was mostly uneventful, but for the annual visits of General Akechi. There was no clear purpose for these visits, but it was generally understood that Akechi was interested in the temple complex. As it was not clear yet if Akechi saw the monks as allies to be bribed or enemies to be sized up, his reception was perfunctory and cold. Akechi's interest in Dagashi was also questioned. At first, Dagashi was mistrusted as a potential spy, but as years went on it was clear that Dagashi was either Akechi's bastard child or his love interest, and no more attention was paid.

In the year 1571, Dagashi turned 19 years old, and Jubei told him his real name was Shippou and a lot of other things.

He did not believe Shippou.

"This, this Naraku, what does he want?"

"Everything."

"And you've been protecting me all this time. Where do you go when you're not here?"

"Spying. Finding out what Naraku is doing."

"And what is he doing?"

"Killing everyone. And he knows now. Somehow, he figured out you're still alive. He knows who you are. And he's coming. He's coming to Kyoto and he's going to burn this entire mountain down just to get to you."

"With what army?"

"The army of Oda Nobunaga."

Dagashi blinked.

"No. . ."

"You've heard it enough. Oda has demonic powers. How else could he live through so many assassination attempts, and weave his way through so many battles? He is a demon. The greatest demon to ever befoul these lands. And he wants to kill you just because he can."

"That's absurd. He's made enough complaints against the yamabushi. We run Kyoto. He's after them, not me."

"For now, trust me, or just pretend to trust me. You will believe me when you see him kill every man and boy on this mountain. This is a personal vendetta, and that will be clear soon enough."

"So what would you have me do, Jubei? Just drop everything, run and hide, let the yamabushi burn?"

"No. We will run, indeed, but we will run away from Naraku just long enough so we can fight him on our own terms. I know he will send his strongest warrior after us. I can't stop her. But you can."

"Her?"

"The last demon-slayer, who became a demon herself, and man-slayer."

"And why her?"

"To finish what she started. She killed your mother, Dagashi. She'll kill you just as easily." He shook his head. "No, not as easily. You look so much like your father. She will falter. Not for very long, mind you, but she will falter."

"And what then, I kill her, and then Oda sends an army after me?"

"No, you must not kill her. You must save her. Purify her. Wipe her clean. And then she'll go back to Naraku, and she will steal his power, and all of this is undone, all in the blink of an eye. Two decades gone wrong, horribly wrong, will simply cease to be."

"So, basically, you're asking me to save the world."

Shippou smiled.

"Yeah. That's what we used to do."

**IV.**

Mount Hiei burned so completely and for so long that even so far as Edo it was not unusual to occasionally see plow horses shake off itchy coats of fine white ash. Sango had seen this, for she had killed and burned more than her share, but what she saw now was the Sagami River, and on its placid surface she saw the reflection of Miroku, who stood over her shoulder and wanted more than anything else to comfort her.

She threw Hiraikotsu at him.

The monk held up a hand, and the weapon bounced off the barrier shell and flew into the river.

"On my way here, a thought occurred to me," he said. "A great teacher told his student: 'Travel throughout this world, seeking Enlightenment. And if you should meet Buddha on the road, kill him.' The lesson being, the most encouraging truths are most likely to be false, and if you think you have reached the end of your journey, you have really only just started."

"To me it sounds like the advice of your teacher is to kill what you do not understand."

"That too. My teacher was named Sogen, whose school was in Enryaku-ji. I assume you were the one who killed him?"

"It is more likely than not," said Sango.

"And my mother, who I did not know, but who had the name Koharu?"

"Yes."

"And my father, who I did not know, but who had the name Miroku?"

She faltered.

"You did not kill him?"

"I . . . don't know. He died. I don't know if I killed him."

The monk considered this.

"Be it either case, I am not here for revenge. I am here to fight you, in hope that this battle will reveal something to you. For two decades you have been an executioner, killing men and women who could never oppose you at your level. See in me, if not an equal, at least a challenge."

She stood.

"You may retrieve your weapon if you wish," he said.

She looked to the river, then looked back at him.

"I really don't think it will affect the outcome," he said.

**V.**

His stamina was amazing for a human, but barely average for a demon. Physical exhaustion weakened his defenses, slowed his attacks, and allowed his spiritual powers to fade, and as hours passed the cuts and gashes added up, and not long before dawn he collapsed, and she threw her weight behind her sword and drove it into his chest, out his back, and an arm-length into the dirt beneath him.

"Did you . . . learn anything?" he gasped.

"I don't know . . ."

"My father . . . speaks to me . . . in my prayers . . . in my dreams. He says . . . he begs me . . . to save your soul."

"Houshi-sama . . ."

"Sango," he said, and it was Miroku's voice now, ghostly, sounding nothing like the voice of a man with a sword through his heart, for this monk bridged the world of the living and the world of the dead, and Miroku spoke to her directly.

"I'm so sorry . . ."

"Awake, Sango. Awake from this dream, realize it is a dream, and seize it. Take control of your fate. Make it as you wish."

"I want to make love to you right now," she said.

He made a sound that sounded like stifled laughter.

"I desire that very much, but I think it would be inappropriate at this time."

"Or you could grope me . . ."

"Focus, Sango."

"I can't bear it. You're the only one who could ever touch me and really make me feel it."

"What year is it now, Sango?"

"What year?"

"Yes."

"The year is 1571."

"Where I am, the night is two-thirds over; I suspect you will awake in 10 years. Please bear it. I will be here, even if you cannot hear me."

"I will pray," she said.

"That is good."

Sango prayed.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Down Like Lead

**THERE WAS A SHIP  
Scribe Figaro**

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**  
**

**Chapter Twelve  
Down Like Lead**  
_The boat came closer to the ship,  
But I nor spake nor stirr'd;  
The boat came close beneath the ship,  
And straight a sound was heard._

_Under the water it rumbled on,  
Still louder and more dread:  
It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;  
The ship went down like lead._

**I.**

In 1582, Naraku watched from the main tower of Azuchi as the castle gates collapsed beneath the forces of a kitsune who had, some years ago, convinced quite a hell of a lot of people that he was Akechi Mitsuhide. The bulk of his forces, under Kohaku, were too distant to aid him, as Naraku was supposed to trust Akechi and be astonished by his betrayal.

The oracle-book was strangely silent on the matter of the Shikon Jewel and his taijiya advisor, and as Naraku watched the torches and spears bob up and down in the courtyard, he found himself rapt with expectation. Imagine being a fan of a popular play, knowing it inside and out, but one day witnessing a performance, much like every other, except the copy was a lost edition, where the next-to-last scene was being performed for the very first time. He _knew_ how it was going to _end_, but _how was it going to get to the end?_

Softly, slowly, the kimono tented outward on his chest, and quietly the cloth gave way, and the hard steel, tip down, pierced him fully, and he felt Sango's shoulder against his spine, driving her sword into him, straight through the heart he had kept in his own chest for so many years, and the sharp steel, and her hands on the hilt, were so intimate, so sensual, so honest.

"Sango," he said, and he said the name as a father who has seen his child for the first time after a long journey. He reached behind his back, gripping her hands, and pulled the sword a few more inches, so its guard was flush with the skin. She lowered her hands, and he turned to her, and gripping her shoulders, leaned into her, and she made not a sound, not a gesture, not a the slightest look of surprise or discomfort or pain, as her sword penetrated her breast, and he took her face in his hands and kissed her.

"I have been waiting so long for you to betray me, Sango. The anticipation has driven me near mad with desire."

In her right hand she held the Shikon Jewel. Naraku embraced the jewel and her hand with his left hand.

"Make a wish, Sango."

The jewel glowed brighter than any light had ever shone before.

**II.**

On a wooded hill, far from anything real, they sat and waited for the end of all things and the beginning of all things. The world before them collapsed upon itself, and began anew.

"It's sort of boring to watch, isn't it?" Onigumo said.

"Yeah."

She was young again, very young, perhaps no older than nine years, innocence again intact. Naraku gave her that much.

Beside her, Onigumo, in his early teens, old enough to be rational, and cynical, but still on the beginnings of his path toward sociopathy, and farther still from being a demon, pressed his hands on his hips and stretched his back idly.

"There was a ship, you know," Onigumo said.

"I know there was."

"In the 12th year of Tenmon, you went with your father to the port of Yokohama, to travel secretly and illegally to Ryukyu, in hopes of securing some medicine there to save your mother's life. It was a test of both your skills, and you likely would have succeeded if not for the storm that held the ship in port long enough for the authorities to catch up and execute everyone aboard."

"We escaped," Sango said.

"You did. You were seven years old at the time, and you disappeared in the crowd like a shadow. And when you met up with your father on the cliffs over the port, what did you do, Sango?"

"I cursed the sea."

"You cursed the sea, Sango."

"And so the sea cursed me."

"Indeed."

"Will this happen again?" Sango asked.

"Probably. We've already done this six times now. I'm running out of ways to kill you people."

"Six times?"

"Probably more. There may have been times before then that I can't remember. That's what the jewel does, you know. Fixes history. Makes everyone forget, except those closest to the jewel, and even then, only if their minds can handle remembering. You were never able to, you know. The monk tried once, to remember, but he found it difficult to deal with. I've killed him four times, I believe. He's killed himself once. You usually kill yourself."

Onigumo pressed a hand to his temple.

"You people are never satisfied with the way things go. I think, twice, one of you managed to kill me. But it wasn't good enough, because maybe Kagome died this time, or Kohaku died that time, or someone got some teeth knocked out, or who knows what. It's never, never good enough for you people. For all I know we've done this final battle a thousand times, a million times, and only in the last few was I able to remember."

"I want to remember this time," Sango said. "I want to tell everyone what happened. What we've been doing."

"You'll regret it. And it probably won't make a difference anyway."

"You're lying. It's doing something, our using the jewel, isn't it?"

Onigumo smiled.

"Yes. Each time you wish on the jewel, and we return to the place where things went wrong, I find the fragments of the jewel I hold are much darker, and much more powerful. It was only the last few times that I noticed."

"So we've been fighting ourselves all this time. Making you more powerful."

"Yes. But still, you will regret knowing this."

"I might. But that's my choice to make."

"That's true."

"So this is it, Onigumo? Thirty years of suffering, befouling myself, killing, and dying. That's my penance, isn't it? To clean the jewel. To stop it from becoming more powerful. To correct our continual misuse of the Shikon no Tama. Just so I could get to this point, and understand what we've been doing, and tell everyone when we return to the place where things went wrong this time."

He shrugged.

"Life's a bitch, and then you do not die," he said.

"What are you, then, Onigumo? My savior? My protector? My advocate? I don't even know if any of this was real. Did this happen, or was it all a dream?"

"Since only you will remember, it makes little difference whether it was a dream or not, I imagine. Personally, I think you should not think of it as a dream, because if it was, then all this is a product of your own mind, and that might very well mean you are insane."

"I guess it doesn't matter."

She stood.

"Next time we meet, I will kill you without hesitation, Sango. But I want you to know I enjoyed this intimacy. I had fun defeating you."

"I am going swimming," she said.

She walked to the shore, to the river, to the lake, to the sea, and waded in, and her kosode pooled around her ankles, and her knees, and her hips, and when she was so deep she could not touch the bottom she slipped out of the garment and she began to swim.

She did not turn back. For days and hours she swam, and she longed for Onigumo's voice, and she longed for the dry shore, and she longed for the brackish mud between her toes, and she faltered and gasped and gagged, and she slipped beneath the waves, her eyes half-lidded, light dancing before her, and Houshi-sama's hand gripped her wrist tightly.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Is good, yes? It took me two years to get a rhythm on this story. I hope it's worthwhile. I'm going to think for a while about the epilogue. Thanks very much for reading so far. 


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